A lift is accelerated upward.Will the apparent weight of a person inside the lift increase,decrease or remain the same relative to its real weight?

Harlen Pritchard

Harlen Pritchard

Answered question

2021-09-19

A lift is accelerated upward.Will the apparent weight of a person inside the lift increase,decrease or remain the same relative to its real weight?

Answer & Explanation

oppturf

oppturf

Skilled2021-09-20Added 94 answers

For this, imagine that there is someone standing on a scale in the lift. Even before the lift begins to move, there is a force exerted on it: the weight of the person.Now the lift starts to accelerate upward. Because the person isn't likely to just go through the floor, that means that the floor (and thus the scale) of the elevator is exerting a force on the person to accelerate them upward at the same rate. So by Newton's third law, the person must be exerting an opposing force downward on the floor/ scale.So now the scale has an additional downward force being applied to it. Hence the apparent weight of the person (i.e. the amount the scale reads) increases.

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