A person stands on his two feet over a surface and experiences a pressure P. Now the person stands on only one foot. He would experience a pressure of magnitude

Pressure is defined as the force exerted per unit area (P = F/A) [1]. In this scenario, the force (F) is the person's weight, which remains constant regardless of whether they stand on one or two feet. When the person stands on two feet, the weight is distributed over the combined area of both feet (A_both = 2 × A_one). When the person switches to standing on only one foot, the contact area is halved (A_new = A_one). Since pressure is inversely proportional to the area for a constant force, reducing the area by half results in the pressure doubling. Therefore, if the initial pressure with two feet is P, the new pressure with one foot will be 2P.

Sources

1. [1] Science ,Class VIII . NCERT(Revised ed 2025) > Chapter 6: Pressure, Winds, Storms, and Cyclones > 6.1 Pressure > p. 82