A pressure acting on a surface is 10 Pa. What does this mean?

Pressure is the amount of force applied to a particular size of area.

   Pressure = Force/Area

The weight of an object sitting on a surface is equal to the force exerted by the object on the surface.

The unit for pressure is the Pascal (Pa). The unit Pascal (Pa) can also be written in the units Newton (N) per meter squared (`~m^2` ).

      So, 1 Pa = 1 N/1 `~m^2`

Therefore, if the pressure acting on a surface is 10 Pa, this means that there are 10 N of force pressing on 1 `~m^2` of the surface.

Example:

Let’s look at an example problem. What is the pressure when 100 N of force are applied to 0.1 `~m^2` of surface?

     Pressure = Force/Area = 100 N/ 0.1 `~m^2` = 1000 Pa