Pressure

Also called Fluid pressure

Pressure is the magnitude of the force component perpendicular to a surface divided by the area of that surface. It is a scalar, measured in pascals, where one pascal is one newton per square metre.

The AP sheet prints P=F/AP = F_{\perp}/A, and every word of essential knowledge 8.2.A.1 matters: only the component of the force perpendicular to the surface counts, and it is spread over the area it acts on. A force applied at an angle contributes only its perpendicular part.

EK 8.2.A.2 then states flatly that pressure is a scalar quantity. That is worth holding on to, because the force a fluid exerts on a wall certainly has a direction. Pressure does not: at a point inside a static fluid it pushes with the same magnitude on a surface facing any way, and the direction only appears once you pick a surface for it to act on.

Units: 1 Pa=1 N/m21\ \text{Pa} = 1\ \text{N/m}^2, and the AP tables give 1 atm=1.0×105 Pa1\ \text{atm} = 1.0 \times 10^5\ \text{Pa}.

Two ideas hang off this one. Pressure in a fluid rises with depth as P=P0+ρghP = P_0 + \rho g h, and the part above the reference pressure P0P_0 is the gauge pressure. The same quantity turns up in Bernoulli's equation as an energy per unit volume, since 1 Pa1\ \text{Pa} is also 1 J/m31\ \text{J/m}^3.

The step-by-step depth calculations live in Fluids in AP Physics 1.

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