source

Last week, my family and I returned home from a relative's house that passed through the mountains. The journey by car was through uphill and downhill roads. We enjoyed it like a tourist trip. The cool air and green scenery along the way really made us happy.

Suddenly my nephew who is still in elementary school asked loudly.

"Uncle, why are the roads in these mountains made winding, won't this make the journey further. Of course it would be closer if it was made straight up to the peak and down the valley. The short distance certainly makes the journey faster, right?"

I was silent for a moment. A question that seemed reasonable. And I saw it as a good idea. A small child had time to think about something that children his age rarely said.

Of course I had to give a reasonable answer that was acceptable to an 11 year old child. I remember that in physics class when I was still in school there was material related to my nephew's question.

While enjoying the journey, I began to explain several things. My nephew listened carefully while occasionally swaying when the car turned.

1. To build a straight and uphill road is very difficult. How can we make a road if it is made straight from the bottom to the top and from the top to the bottom on the other side of the mountain. Heavy equipment and building materials are difficult to place.
2. In terms of physics, making winding roads in the mountains is very closely related to the use of one type of simple plane, namely an inclined plane. By using an inclined plane to make a winding uphill road, the energy expended is not too much. How is that possible? Let's try to explain further.

What is an inclined plane?

An inclined plane is a path that has a slope and forms an angle to its flat surface. For more details, see the following image

The force used to raise an object with a circular plane can be found using the formula

From the formula we can see that the force is directly proportional to the height. The flatter an inclined plane is, the more efficient the force that is used. Moreover, if you do not use an inclined plane, such as lifting an object directly to a height, the greater the force needed. In this case, the formula for finding the force does not use the length of the inclined side, so it remains

Let's make an example of finding the force for the same object weight and the same height but one uses an inclined plane and the other does not use it
An object with a mass of 20 kg is moved to another place with a height of 1 meter, one uses an inclined plane with a length of 4 meters while the other does not use an inclined plane
First let's find the weight of the object by converting it to newtons by multiplying the mass by the acceleration due to gravity

Now let's compare between the ones that use inclined planes and those that don't.
In the use of inclined planes, we can calculate by entering it into the formula above.

Now we calculate without inclined plane

Now we know that using an inclined plane in the example problem is much lighter. Thus, an inclined plane is very helpful in our daily lives. Including building a road in the mountains by making it winding makes the force required much more efficient than making it straight uphill to the top.

With this explanation I hope my nephew and all readers can understand why the road on the mountain is built winding.

That's my writing this time, hopefully it is useful. Thank you for stopping by and reading it

Warm regard from Indonesia
Rokhani