You stand on a bathroom scale in a moving elevator. what happens to the scale reading if the cable holding the elevator suddenly breaks?

A bathroom scales works due to gravity. Under normal conditions, a reading can be obtained when your body is pushing some force on the scale. However in this case, since you and the scale are both moving downwards, so your body is no longer pushing on the scale. Therefore the answer is:

The reading will drop to 0 instantly

The bathroom scale gives the reading as zero as soon as the cable of the elevator breaks because the elevator starts to fall with the acceleration same as the acceleration due to gravity.

Further Explanation:

The bathroom scale kept in an elevator shows the weight of the person standing on the scale. The weight of a person is the measure of the force experienced by the person due to the acceleration due to gravity of Earth.

Since the scale is kept in an elevator, the reading of the scale is affected by the acceleration of the elevator as it exerts a pseudo force on the person standing on the scale in opposite direction.

If the cables holding the elevator are broken suddenly, the elevators starts to fall will the acceleration due to gravity and the person on the scale experiences weightlessness inside the elevator as the pseudo force acting in the opposite direction is equal to his weight. Therefore, the bathroom scale will give the reading zero as the cable of the elevator breaks.

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Answer Details:

Grade: High School

Chapter: Force and acceleration

Subject: Physics

Keywords:  Bathroom scale, moving elevator, scale reading, acceleration due to gravity, suddenly breaks, weightlessness, pseudo force, opposite direction.

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