What quantity did you change?
Labs / Physics
Torque Balance
Drag the hanging weights along the beam and watch it tip. A torque is a force times its distance from the pivot, so the beam only settles level when the clockwise and counter-clockwise torques are equal — even when the two sides carry very different masses.
Labs / Physics / Torque Balance
Torque Balance
Drag the hanging weights along the beam and watch it tip. A torque is a force times its distance from the pivot, so the beam only settles level when the clockwise and counter-clockwise torques are equal — even when the two sides carry very different masses.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Physics explains how changes in forces, energy, motion, and matter produce results we can measure. This model lets you test one part of that relationship at a time.
Explore
Try the model
CCW 0.0 N·mCW 0.0 N·mnet 0.0 N·mUnbalanced
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Can a light weight far out ever balance a heavy weight sitting close to the pivot?
- Slide the pivot toward one end. Which side suddenly needs less mass to stay level?
- Add a third weight. Does it matter which side you place it on, or only how big its torque is?
- Move a weight right up next to the pivot. Why does its torque shrink toward zero?
- When the beam sits at a tilt, watch the “net” readout — what number must it reach before the beam stops moving?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Name the quantity you changed, the quantity that responded, and the physical rule connecting them. Use a readout or visible change as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
What measurable result changed?
Which physical idea connects them?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.