Question

How does pressure of a liqid depend upon acceleration due to gravity

Answer 1

Pressure is a scalar quantity defined as force per unit area. Pressure only concerns the force component perpendicular to the surface upon which it acts, thus if the force acts at an angle, the force component along the direction perpendicular to the surface must be used to calculate pressure.The pressure exerted on a surface by an object increases as the weight of the object increases or the surface area of contact decreases. Alternatively the pressure exerted decreases as the weight of the object decreases or the surface area of contact increases.Pressure exerted by ideal gases in confined containers is due to the average number of collisions of gas molecules with the container walls per unit time. As such, pressure depends on the amount of gas (in number of molecules), its temperature, and the volume of the container.

Key Terms

ideal gas: Theoretical gas characterized by random motion whose individual molecules do not interact with one another and are chemically inert.kinetic energy: The energy associated with a moving particle or object having a certain mass.

Pressure is an important physical quantity—it plays an essential role in topics ranging from thermodynamics to solid and fluid mechanics. As a scalar physical quantity (having magnitude but no direction), pressure is defined as the force per unit area applied perpendicular to the surface to which it is applied. Pressure can be expressed in a number of units depending on the context of use.