Sandeep pushed the same handcart easily yesterday; today it feels much harder, although nothing…
Sandeep pushed the same handcart easily yesterday; today it feels much harder, although nothing new was loaded onto it. Sandeep says the cart must have become heavier. Anjali says the reason cannot be settled yet. Who is right?
Who do you think is right? Pick one.
The answer: Anjali is right
Why
Sandeep is reasoning sensibly — a harder push usually does mean more load, and that is the first thing worth checking. But weight is not the only thing that decides how hard a cart is to move. Friction can change on its own: a tyre has gone soft, the axle has rusted or lost its grease, the ground is wet or sandy today, or the path tilts up very slightly. Any one of those makes the very same cart harder to push without adding a single gram. Test: pump the tyres and try again on yesterday's stretch — same cart, same load, easier push tells you it was never the weight. Anjali is right: one effect can have several possible causes, and naming one without checking is a guess wearing the clothes of a conclusion.
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