Question

You push tangentially on the rim of a playground merry-go-round. Then you gradually change the direction of your push until you are pushing directly toward the center of the merry-go-round. What has happened to the magnitude of your torque on the merry-go-round?

Answer 1

Decreased

Step-by-step explanation:

When the force applied to a body is multiplied by the distance to the center of a rotating body we obtain torque

`\tau=F* r`

`\tau=|F|* |r| sin\theta`

where,

F = Force

r = Distance to the center

`\theta` = Angle by which you are applying force when pushing toward the center it becomes 0

Here, when you are pushing towards the center the angle becomes zero which makes the torque zero