Fluid Pressure

Imagine using a bicycle pump. When you push down on the handle, air rushes into the tire and spreads uniformly throughout it.

This happens because fluids like liquids and gases exert pressure in all directions.

Fluid pressure is caused by tiny moving particles constantly colliding with each other and their surroundings.

These collisions create pressure, which causes the particles to push each other. Fluids naturally move from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure.

For example, when you open a soda bottle, the air inside rushes out because the pressure inside is higher than the pressure outside.

Two factors that affect fluid pressure are depth and density. Let’s look at an example of depth, the deeper you go in a fluid, the greater the pressure.

When you dive into a pool, you feel more pressure because the water above pushes down, increasing pressure.

Denser fluids exert more pressure than less dense ones because their tightly packed particles cause more collisions.

So, deep scuba divers experience greater pressure since the water around them is denser than at the sea surface.