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GLOSSARY OF TERMS mechanical advantage- the increase in leverage which is gained in the applied force upon an object in the performance of work by a mechanical device, which allows the same amount of force thus mechanically applied to that object to accomplish a greater amount of work. This mechanical advantage amounts to a ratio of the force effected through the machine as compared to the force applied to the machine, and which ratio will be modified by the forces of friction of the object upon which the machine or device operates, as well as by any friction internal to the mechanical device. A simple example of mechanical advantage should illustrate this principle: a lever is used to free an object through the vertical plane, say a crowbar in the liberation of a rock from the place where it sits in the way. In order to help maximize the mechanical advantage in this transposition of an object, a fulcrum beneath the crow bar is utilized, rather than to simply place the crow bar underneath the rock and merely jar it somewhat. The advantage mechanically is to be had when the crow bar gains not only an interface with the rock so that it can move the rock's weight, but more effectively through the distance of the point of changed direction of force, which force will actively gain its vertical direction at the fulcrum upon which rests the crow bar some distance back from the rock. But this vertical direction gained through the application of the force at the fulcrum will vary as to the length of the distance between the fulcrum and the rock. The longer the arm of the lever from the fulcrum to the rock, the higher the vertical lift thus gained through the application of the force upon the lever. The fulcrum effectively changes the direction of force applied to the crow bar, but also turns that change in direction into an amplified output of work. Two points are restated in this analysis: the first is that the mechanical advantage gained by the use of the lever will vary directly with the length of the arm of the lever from the fulcrum to the secured point of contact with the rock, so that the greater the length of the lever's section past the point of the change in the direction of force, the fulcrum, the greater the mechanical advantage. Secondly, the entire event of the mechanical advantage applied through the use of the mechanical device, the crow bar, is a fundamental result of the change in direction of the force applied to the lever by that lever at the fulcrum.
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