# confirm physicsness... tires
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 10, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269 "2003-08-10T22:05:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2003, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/1 "2003-08-10T22:05:13Z")
ok, i was thinking about how tires flatten out a bit on the bottom… under their own and the car’s weight… and i was thinking… (assume: tires can hold infinite pressure, we have a pump capable of producing near-infinite pressure) can a tire ever not be disfigured?
I’m guessing no… and here’s why… if you inflate a tire to a higher psi, then the area on the ground would decrease to force the equillibrium to stabilize. repeat. the area at the bottom decreases, but it’s still disfigured. so would it work out to be:the amount touching the ground have a limit of 0 as pressure goes to infinity?
correct or verify me.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2003, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/2 "2003-08-10T22:08:24Z")
Yep. Assuming, of course, the tires are perfectly round and the earth is perfectly flat and all.
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### Author:  [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2003, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/3 "2003-08-10T22:44:17Z")
Sounds similar to trying to straighten a piece of string with a book tied in the middle.
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### Author:  [@MonkeyMensch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MonkeyMensch)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2003, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/4 "2003-08-10T23:29:18Z")
Welcome to materials science.
Rule #1: All materials deform under load.
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### Author:  [@chaoticbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chaoticbear)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/5 "2003-08-10T23:52:04Z")
hmmm MonkeyMensch, easier… lol
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### Author:  [@vasyachkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vasyachkin)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2003, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/6 "2003-08-11T00:56:46Z")
ye i would say the area of contact with ground will be inversely proportional to tire pressure.
if you were to drive in sand or something, you might consider deflating the tires somewhat to increase the contact patch and keep the vehicle from sinking 🙂
the forces that hold atoms together are only so strong, you would not be able to support the weight of car on a single atom.
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### Author:  [@Phage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phage)
#### Post date: [August 11, 2003, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/7 "2003-08-11T01:18:26Z")
Actually, **vasyachkin** , we have already established that we have a tire capable of withstanding infinite pressure. I don’t think that it is too great a jump of logic to assume that the same tire contains atoms with infinite cohesive strength, so we could put the entire car on a single atom.
I wonder how that would affect friction… Obviously we would not be able to get any real traction, so I suspect the car would slide into the nearest pit. The driver could then floor the gas and cause the single atom we happen to be resting on to explode as the center atoms along the middle of the tire fly past. Gradually we would dig a pit, until we got enough friction to move, correct?
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### Author:  [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/8 "2003-08-12T03:30:19Z")
I would think that unless the tire is completely bald, the tread will still provide a minimum area of contact.
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### Author:  [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)
#### Post date: [August 12, 2003, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/9 "2003-08-12T03:48:02Z")
Bald or tread matters little. You’ll need a tire of infinte hardness so there is no deformation of the tread. If you’ve got that then there is no point in inflating it anyway.
Oh, you’ll also need a roadbed of infinite hardness and perfect smoothness to get one atom contact.
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### Author:  [@vasyachkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vasyachkin)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2003, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/confirm-physicsness-tires/194269/10 "2003-08-13T07:39:53Z")
no, you’d still be screwed. cuz atom doesn’t have well-defined dimensions. there is a RANGE of distances over which it interacts with the next atom 🙂 thus thousands of nearby atoms would also be interacting with the pavement, thougth to a slightly lesser degree 🙂
the point being, this is a stupid question to consider 🙂