Home > Inclined plane

An inclined plane or a ramp is an sloped surface; for example a roadway to bridge a height difference. The inclined plane is used to reduce the force necessary to overcome the force of gravity when elevating or lowering a heavy object. The ramp makes it easier to move a physical body vertically by extending the distance traveled horizontally (run) to achieve the desired elevation change (rise).

In civil engineering the slope or ratio of rise/run is often referred to as a grade or gradient.

Ramps are used as an alternative for a stairway for wheelchairs, buggies and shopping carts. Ramps may zigzag. There are also moving ramps.

By changing the angle of the ramp one can usefully vary the force necessary to raise or lower a load. For example:

A wagon trail on a steep hill will often traverse back and forth to reduce the gradientMultivariate calculus In vector calculus, gradient is a vector-valued operator that acts on a scalar field. The gradient of a scalar field is a vector field called gradient field which shows its rate and direction of change. For example, consider a room. experienced by a team pulling a heavily loaded wagon. This same techique is used today in modern freeways which travel through steep mountain passIn a mountain range, a pass (also gap notch col saddle or bealach is a lower point that allows easier access through the range. On the route through the range, it is the highest point on the route. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have always prees. Some steep passes have separate truck routes that reduce the grade by winding along a separate path to rejoin the main route after a particularly steep section is past while smaller automobiles take the straighter steeper route with a resulting savings in time.

It is important in the history of science, engineering and technology for a variety of reasons:

The ramp or inclined plane was useful in building early stone edifices, in roads and aquaducts, and military assault of fortified positions.

Experiments with inclined planes helped early physicists such as Galileo GalileiGalileo Galilei ( Pisa, February 15, 1564 Arcetri, January 8, 1642), was a Tuscan astronomer, philosopher, and physicist who is closely associated with the scientific revolution. His great achievements include perfecting the telescope, a variety of astron quantify the behavior of nature with respect to gravity, mass, acceleration, etc.

Detailed understanding of inclined planes and their use helped lead to the understanding of how vectorA vector in physics and engineering typically refers to a quantity that has close relationship to the spatial coordinates, informally described as an object with a "magnitude" and a "direction". The word vector is also now used for more general concepts ( quantities such as forces can be usefully decomposed and manipulated mathematically. This concept of superposition and decomposition is critical in many modern fields of scienceFor the scientific journal named Science see Science (journal). Science is both a process of gaining knowledge, and the organized body of knowledge gained by this process. The scientific process is the systematic acquisition of new knowledge about a syste, engineeringEngineering is the application of science to the needs of humanity. This is accomplished through knowledge, mathematics, and practical experience applied to the design of useful objects or processes. Professional practitioners of engineering are called en, and technologyTechnology ( Gr. tau;εχνολογια < τεχνη "craftsmanship" + λογος "word, reckoning" + the suffix ια) has more than one definition..

The term inclined plane is also used for a funicular.