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Difference Between Pressure And Force

October 4, 2022
written by Adeel Abbas

The difference between pressure and force is that the total impact of one object on another is referred to as force and the physical quantity of force spread over a certain area is referred to as pressure.

What is Force?

The push or pull on an object is known as a force. Whenever there is some interaction between the objects, there will be a force on each of them. The force is no longer experienced by objects in the absence of interaction. By Newton’s second law of motion, we can find the force acting on the body from the formula

F=ma

where m is the mass of the body and a is the acceleration produced due to the force. It has a specific direction of action with the magnitude because it is a vector quantity. For a complete description, we have to describe both the magnitude and the direction. The force diagrams are represented by an arrow because of their vector quantity. The SI unit of force is the kilogram per second square.

What is Pressure?

The amount of force spread over a certain area is known as pressure. The force per unit area is what is referred to as pressure. If you divide the amount of force being applied to a body by the area of contact, you will see how much pressure is being applied to the body.

Pressure = force/area

The force that is applied to a smaller area will produce more pressure than the force that is applied to a larger surface area. The force that I exert on the floor when standing on both feet is the same as the force that I exert on the floor when standing on one foot. I put a lot of pressure on the floor when I was standing on one foot.

Difference Between Pressure and Force

There is some difference between pressure and force.

image showing the difference between pressure and force
ForcePressure
The push or pull on an object is known as a force.The amount of force spread over a certain area is known as pressure.
The SI unit of force is Newton Its unit of measurement is Pascal (Pa).
A dynamometer is an instrument used to measure force.A manometer is used to measure the pressure.
Force is a vector quantity.Pressure is a scalar quantity.
We can change the velocity of the object by applying force in one directionUnlike the force, the velocity of the object cannot change due to pressure.

Related FAQs

What is the main difference between force and pressure?

The difference between pressure and force is that the total impact of one object on another is referred to as force and the physical quantity of force spread over a certain area is referred to as pressure.

Is pressure is a force or not?

Pressure is a force acting on the unit area of the body. If you want to create a large amount of pressure, you can either exert a large force or exert a small force over a small area.

Where pressure is used in daily life?

Blood is taken for tests with syringes is the example of pressure. When the plunger is withdrawn, the pressure of the blood causes the liquid to move into the syringe. When air is sucked out of a drinking straw, the air pressure inside is affected by the pressure outside and the liquid inside is affected by the pressure inside.