¶ Lever (1)
Index Entry
Lever:
"The lever works whether it is wood, steel, aluminum, fiber glass, or even reinforced concrete. Reinforced concrete can make a lever. The principle of the lever; that is, balancing the arms from the fulcrum over to the load and then on to the lifting arm on the opposite side of the fulcrum to go out one increment of distance between load and fulcrum and you have an even advantage: to go out with ten such lengths, you can lift ten times as much weight, and so it goes. If the distance is one foot from the load to the fulcrum, and you go out on the lever arm ten feet, and you weigh 200 pounds, you will be able to lift ten times 200 pounds, or exactly one ton on the other end of the lever.
“So little you could lift one ton. I should say ‘little 200-pound you’ could lift one ton. That would be ten times your own weight; that is my main point. And the main point about the lever is that it doesn’t have to be wood. It can be any kind of material and it can work anywhere in the Universe. Whereas your experience with the lever is always one special-case lever-- a wooden one, or a steel one-- and any that you”
