Lever a fixed point. The lever operates by applying forces at different distances from the fulcrum, or a pivot. Assuming the lever does not dissipate or store energy, the power into the lever must equal the power out of the lever. As the lever rotates around the fulcrum, points farther from this pivot move faster than points closer to the pivot. Therefore, a force applied to a point farther from the pivot must be less than the force located at a point closer in, because power is the product of force and velocity. If "a" and "b" are distances from the
Lever of the lever. The word "lever" entered English about 1300 from Old French, in which the word was "levier". This sprang from the stem of the verb "lever", meaning "to raise". The verb, in turn, goes back to the Latin "levare", itself from the adjective "levis", meaning "light" (as in "not heavy"). The word's primary origin is the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) stem "legwh-", meaning "light", "easy" or "nimble", among other things. The PIE stem also gave rise to the English word "light". The earliest remaining writings regarding levers date from the 3rd century BCE and were provided by Archimedes. 'Give me