To pop a balloon you stab it with a pencil. If the area of the pencil tip is .001in2 and the pressure applied by the pencil to the balloon is 10...

Take note that pressure is defined as force per unit area.

`P = F/A`

(where P is the pressure,  F is the force applied and A is the surface area where the force is applied)

Plugging in the values of P and A, the formula becomes:

`10 (l b s)/( i n ^2) = F/(0.001 i n ^2)`

Isolating the  F, it yields:

`10(l b s)/(i n ^2) * 0.001 i n ^2 = F`

`0.01 lbs = F`

Therefore,  0.01 lbs of force is applied to pop the balloon.