In the third century BC, Archimedes said, “Give me a long enough lever and a firm fulcrum and I will lift the earth.”
(a) Using the moon as a fixed fulcrum, how long a lever would Archimedes have needed to lift the earth?
(b) What would be the mechanical advantage of such a simple machine? (Disregard the mass of the lever. Assume the weight of the earth is 5.85 x 1025 N, Archimedes’ weight is 858 N, and the distance from the earth to the moon is 3.84 x 108 m.)