What is pressure?

Pressure is when something pushes on another thing from all sides at once, like being hugged by a big fluffy cloud.

Imagine you're sitting on a chair. Your body is pushing down on the chair, and the chair is pushing up on you, that's pressure in action! Now, think about how it feels when you sit on a soft cushion versus a hard chair. The cushion makes your body feel less pushed because it spreads out the force more.

Pressure depends on two things: how much force (like pushing or squeezing) is used and how big the area is that the force is spread over.

• If you press a thumbtack into a wall, it goes in easily. That’s because the pointy end of the tack has a small area, so the same push feels much stronger there.
• But if you use your whole hand to press on the wall, it doesn’t go in as deep, the force is spread out over a bigger area.

So pressure is like a squeeze that can be big or little, depending on how hard you push and how much space you give it!