Wikipedia
In physics, the line of action of a force F is a geometric representation of how the force is applied. It is the line through the point at which the force is applied in the same direction as the vector .
The concept is essential, for instance, for understanding the net effect of multiple forces applied to a body. As an example, if two forces of equal magnitude act upon a rigid body along the same line of action but in opposite directions, then they have no net effect—loosely speaking, they cancel one another out. But if, instead, their lines of action are not identical, but merely parallel, then their effect is to create a moment on the body, which tends to rotate it.
Usage examples of "line of action".
Better than any type of conceptualization, the quotations revealed an unsuspected and unwavering line of action that don Juan had followed in order to promote and facilitate my entrance into his world.
He'd swallowed half the drink Celia offered him at a gulp and now, a few minutes later, he was experiencing what might have been under different circumstances a comfortable glow, but which didn't entirely erase the awareness of having committed himself at this hour to an irrevocable line of action.
That is a line of action for which, depend upon it, Nero is not prepared.
Don Juan Matus's line of action was his intentional attempt to pull me into what he said was another cognitive system.
Hed swallowed half the drink Celia offered him at a gulp and now, a few minutes later, he was experiencing what might have been under different circumstances a comfortable glow, but which didnt entirely erase the awareness of having committed himself at this hour to an irrevocable line of action.
He froze before the transmitter, wondering what would be his best line of action.
In fact, he could imagine only one line of action, though it seemed to promise little.
His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness.