The world is full of forces that act upon things and people and affect them. These forces are, among other: tension, gravitation and friction; and each of these forces has a size and a direction. The combination of size and direction constitutes a force vector.
A Newton – the unit commonly applied for measuring forces was called after an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer and natural philosopher Sir Isaac Newton, who described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion. These aspects monopolised the scientific perception of the physical world for a few ages. Isaac Newton influenced the development of the Scientific Revolution when he learned that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are subject to the same natural laws.
Using the scientific units of Newtons it is possible to measure forces acting upon any object. Machines serving this purpose are called force meters (also known as Newton meters), which basically use elastic materials, like springs and rubber bands, to measure the forces acting upon a thing or a person and pushing, pulling, rotating, accelerating or even deforming it.
There are different versions of force meters to choose from; however, they all perform the same task, which simply means measuring different forces of the world. Many models of force meters are constructed with the use of rubber bands, the elasticity of which alters with each use, resulting in imprecision problems. Other, basic force meters, can be constructed with two pieces of a PVC tube, two rather small washers, a quite long wire and, of course, a fairly thick rubber band. Irrespective of whether the force meters are of a simple or a more complicated composition, they are very practical devices.
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