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Bar (unit)

physical science Maturity 11-13 Next article →

A bar is a unit used to measure pressure. Pressure is how much a force pushes on a surface.

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The name comes from an ancient Greek word that means weight. One bar is very close to the air pressure at sea level. It is also about the same as the pressure of water at a depth of 10 metres. This makes it a very useful tool for many different jobs.

Scientists use different parts of the bar to measure things. A millibar is a much smaller unit than a full bar. You can also use a decibar, which is a middle size. In fresh water, one decibar is about the same as one metre of depth. This is helpful for ocean scientists. In the sea, they use a special formula to change pressure into depth.

People have used these units for a long time. A Norwegian meteorologist named Vilhelm Bjerknes helped introduce them. He was a founder of modern weather forecasting. He defined the bar as one megadyne per square centimetre. Even though the bar is not part of the official International System of Units, it is still used. It has been legally recognized in the European Union since 2004.

There are many different sizes of the bar. You can have a kilobar, which is 1,000 bars. There is also a megabar, which is 1,000,000 bars. Engineers often use the bar because other units use numbers that are too large. For example, a scuba tank might hold 200 bar of air. Some industrial machines use pressures as high as 300 bar.

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You might see the bar in your daily life. People use it to check the pressure in car tires.

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Weather reporters also use it to track big storms. In the United States, people use millibars to talk about hurricanes. Pilots in many countries use hectopascals to talk about air pressure. These units help everyone understand how much force is pushing around them.

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