- #1
PhiowPhi
- 203
- 8
I was playing around a piece of paper by placing my pencil in the center and applying torque on the pencil(pencil Y-axis paper x-axis vice versa), and that torque transmits to the paper as well and it starts to rotate. Then I moved the pencil to the far edge of the paper and applied torque there as well, the page rotated around the pencil. Now I placed another pencil to the opposite position of the first pencil (imagine the first pencil being in the far right of the paper and the second in the far left), then applied torque as well the page will not rotate. I started to think, if I did apply equal torque in the same direction to these pencils based on their positions the paper will not rotate, even on other shapes like a disc it will not. Why is that..? Why can't two different positioned points applying the same torque rotate the paper/disc? It seem as if they cancel out instead of adding up although they are in the same direction.