This article was reviewed by Grace Imson, MA and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD. Grace Imson is a math teacher with over 40 years of teaching experience. Grace is currently a math instructor at the City College of San Francisco and was previously in the Math Department at Saint Louis University. She has taught math at the elementary, middle, high school, and college levels. She has an MA in Education, specializing in Administration and Supervision from Saint Louis University.
There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.
This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources.
This article has been viewed 265,815 times.
You likely know that if you push or pull on an object (exert force), it will move a distance. The distance it moves depends on how heavy the object is and how much force you apply. However, if the object is fixed at some point (called the "rotational point" or "axis"), and you push or pull on the object at some distance from that point, the object will instead rotate around that axis. The magnitude of that rotation is torque (τ), expressed in newton-meters (N∙m). The most basic way to calculate torque is to multiply the Newtons of force exerted by the meters of distance from the axis. There's also a rotational version of this formula for 3-dimensional objects that uses the moment of inertia and angular acceleration. Calculating torque is a physics concept requiring an understanding of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. [1] X Research source