Consider a piece of box-shaped gelatin dessert of known dimensions, whose bottom surface is fixed. If a shearing force of 0.50 N is applied to its top surface, the upper surface displaces by 0.5 cm relative to the bottom surface. What is the resulting shear stress, measured shear strain, and shear modulus of the gelatin? An object under shear stress experiences two anti-parallel forces of equal magnitude that are applied tangentially to the object's opposite parallel surfaces. So, the ratio of this tangential force to the cross-sectional area gives the shear stress. Since there is no change in the direction transverse to the applied forces, the transverse length remains unchanged. The shear strain is defined by a gradual shift of the layers in the direction tangential to the force. By substituting the obtained quantities in the expression, the gelatin's shear stress and strain are calculated. The ratio of shear stress to shear strain gives the shear modulus. A higher shearing force increases the shear stress in the gelatin, causing the material to collapse.