A tiny teal child sits stuck high in the air on the left end of a wooden seesaw while a big coral grown-up sits on the right end which has crashed down to the grass, the purple balance point in the middle.

How can a tiny kid lift a giant grown-up?

On a seesaw the grown-up is way heavier — it looks hopeless. Yet a kid can send them flying up. There's a sneaky trick hiding in here. Let's find it.

Push-down power is made of two things. First: how heavy you are. The heavier you are, the harder gravity yanks you down. A giant has lots. A kid has little.

A small teal child with a short thin downward arrow stands beside a big coral grown-up with a long thick downward arrow, showing gravity pulls the heavier grown-up down much harder.

The second thing is sneaky: where you sit. Tap the seesaw and watch the same little weight — up close, then way out.

tap the seesaw

Two ways to set up a seesaw. Fair: balance point in the middle, so the heavy giant wins. Sneaky: slide it toward the giant — short arm, long arm. What now?

Two side-by-side seesaws: on the left the purple balance point is in the middle so the heavy giant has crashed down and the kid is stuck up in the air, and on the right the balance point is slid under the giant to give it a short arm and the kid a long arm, with both about to climb onto the empty plank so the outcome is not shown yet.

Your turn — nobody changes weight. Slide only the balance point and watch the push bars race.

Kid's push
Giant's push
balance point: in the middle
near the kidnear the giant

Held level for now — just watch who is pushing harder.

Now the real test.

A seesaw with the purple balance point nailed in the middle and the coral giant sitting close to it on a short arm, crashed to the ground, while the tiny teal kid sits near the middle lifted high, and a dotted arc shows the kid could still scoot out along the long empty arm.

The giant weighs three kid-weights and sits one step from the middle. What if the kid moves three equal steps out? 🤔

Push-down power is weight × distance.

The giant weighs three kid-weights and sits one step out. The kid sits three equal steps out. What will the plank do?