--- title: Levers: lifting heavy things with a little push — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Levers: lifting heavy things with a little push», a lesson of the physics course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A lever is a stiff bar that turns round a fixed point called a pivot, and it lets a small push do a big job. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/) / Levers: lifting heavy things with a li… # Levers: lifting heavy things with a little push Lesson 33 of the physics course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/0/) — A lever is a stiff bar that turns round a fixed point called a pivot, and it lets a small push do a big job. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/1/) — Push down on the long handle of a screwdriver jammed under a paint tin lid, and the short end near the rim pushes up so hard that the lid pops off. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/2/) — The secret is distance from the pivot: push far from it and you need only a little force, while close to it the bar pushes very hard but moves only a little. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/3/) — Levers can also swap the other way, giving up force for speed and reach, which is how your arm and a fishing rod flick things far and fast. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/4/) — Seesaws, scissors, wheelbarrows, bottle openers, nutcrackers, tongs and even your own arm are all levers. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/5/) — A lever is a stiff bar that turns about a pivot, and a small force far from the pivot makes a big force near it. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/6/) — The longer the handle of a lever, the easier the lift. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/7/) — A seesaw is a lever with the pivot in the middle, so a child sitting far out can lift a grown-up sitting close in. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/8/) — Archimedes, a Greek thinker, said that with a long enough lever and a place to stand he could move the Earth. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/10/) — In a wheelbarrow the wheel is the pivot, and the load is easiest to lift when it sits close to the wheel. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/11/) — A nutcracker squeezes hardest on a nut placed close to the hinge. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/12/) — A crowbar with a small stone underneath as a pivot can lift a heavy stone slab; ancient builders moved giant stones with levers and ramps. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/13/) — Your arm is a lever with the elbow as the pivot; the muscle pulls close to the elbow, so it must pull hard, but the hand moves far and fast. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/14/) — Tongs and tweezers are levers pressed in the middle; they give less force but more control, so they suit careful work. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/33-levers-lifting-heavy-things-with-a-little-push/15/) — A long lever like a fishing rod turns a small movement of the hand into a big, fast movement at the tip. - ← previous: [Fuels, the Sun and saving energy](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/32-fuels-the-sun-and-saving-energy/) - next →: [Wheels, axles, ramps and screws](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/34-wheels-axles-ramps-and-screws/) - ↑ back to [Physics](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/)