AP Physics - Newton's Laws

This is where the real physics begins. Physics is more than equations and math problems -- it is
the laws of the universe and, most importantly, understanding these laws. The laws, of course,
determine how everything works.

The first of these laws we will study were developed by Sir Isaac Newton while he camped out
on a farm having fled the London plague of 1665. An interesting thing about all of it is that he
didn’t publish them until 1687. Wonder why? Anyway, twenty-two years later in 1687, he
finally got around to publishing them in his book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
(Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) which is usually known as the Principia. It
was written in Latin and wasn’t translated into English until 1729. Other trivia bits on the thing?
Okay. The Principia is perhaps the greatest scientific work ever written. In it, Newton set out
how the universe operates. He explained how the planets orbit the sun, how the moon orbits the
earth, and how objects behave on earth. It basically founded the science of physics.

So, let us get into the physics.

Inertia: Inertia is an important property of matter.

Inertia  property of matter that resists changes in its motion.

Basically, because of inertia, objects want to maintain whatever motion they have. This was
described initially by Galileo; later Sir Isaac Newton formulated it into one of his basic laws of
motion.

Inertia is proportional to mass. The more mass something has, the more inertia it has.

Mass  measurement of inertia; quantity of matter in an object.

The unit for mass is the kilogram (kg). Mass is also defined as the amount of matter something
has. Mass is different than weight, which is the gravitational force of attraction between the earth
and an object.

More important definitions:

Force  push or pull.

Contact Force  physical contact exists between the object and source of the force.
(Most forces are contact forces)

Field Forces  No contact exists between the source of the force and the body being
acted upon. Example: gravity, magnetic force, etc.

Friction  A force that resists the motion between two objects in contact with one
another. Note: this is not the same as inertia.
Newton’s First Law of Motion (aka the Law of inertia):
Newton’s First Law: An object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion
remains in motion with constant velocity unless it is acted upon by an outside force.

This law really deals with inertia. It is because of its inertia that matter behaves according to this
law. The idea that something would keep moving at a constant velocity for like forever is
something that we don’t see happen very often on the earth, because when something is moving,
there is almost always an outside force acting on it – usually friction. This is why a ball rolling
along a straight section of road will come to a stop all on its own. Friction slows it down and
makes it stop.

When the net external force acting on an object is zero, the acceleration on the object is zero and
it moves with a constant velocity. Of course, if it is at rest, it will remain at rest. (Unless an
outside force blah blah blah….)

If Then and v is constant

We call this linear equilibrium.

Newton’s Second Law of Motion:

Second Law  The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force
acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.

This is usually written as a simple formula,

More properly, however, it should be thought of as:

This means that the acceleration of an object is a function of the sum of all forces acting on it.
The sum of these forces is known as the net force.

Force is a vector!

The unit for force is the Newton (N)

In the USA, the unit for force is the pound (lbs.). 1 N = 0.225 lbs. Also, 1 kg = 2.2 pounds.
Newton’s second law is responsible for weight. Weight is a force, the force of gravity acting on
something. Using the second law, we see that the weight of an object is:

or Fg = mg

Here, w is the weight.

Weight  force exerted by gravity on an object’s mass.

The weight of an object depends on the acceleration of gravity. If the acceleration brought about
by gravity changes, then the weight can change. This does not happen with mass - the mass of an
object is a constant and has the same value everywhere. If you were to travel to the moon, your
weight would be only 1/6 of its value on earth, but your mass would be the same. This is because
the gravity on the moon is much smaller than the earth’s gravity.

 An object has a mass of 10.0 kg, find its weight.

Recall that accelerations change velocities. Therefore, the net force is the thing that causes
accelerations.

 A 450 kg mass is accelerated at 2.5 m/s2. What is the net force causing this acceleration?
 A 2500 kg car is pushed with a net force of 250 N force, what is the acceleration acting on
the car?

 Now same problem, same 250 N force and all, but the mass of the car is twice as big, 5000
kg. Let's find the acceleration once again.

Mass and acceleration are inversely proportional. Double the mass than you half the
acceleration.

 An artillery shell has a mass of 55 kg. The projectile is fired from the piece and has a
velocity of 770 m/s when it leaves the barrel. The gun barrel is 1.5 m long. Assuming the
force and therefore the acceleration is constant while the projectile is in the barrel, what is
the force that acted on the projectile?
Newton’s Third Law of Motion:

Third Law  If two objects interact, the force exerted on object 1 by object 2 is equal
in magnitude but opposite in direction to the force exerted on object 2 by object 1.

The classic way of saying this is, “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”.

Newton’s third law simply says that forces come in pairs. You push on a wall and the wall
pushes on you. We call these action/reaction force pairs.

One of the skills most people master is walking. We rarely think about the act of walking – you
don’t have to concentrate on it, it’s just something that you can do. It turns out, however, that
walking is a fairly sophisticated application of Newton’s laws of motion.

The key to walking is the third law. You push against the ground and the ground pushes you.
All there is to it. But how does that make you move? Okay, you take your basic second law. It
goes like this; you exert a force on the ground, and it exerts a force on you. The two forces are
equal and opposite. The force exerted on you by the earth causes you to accelerate. The size of
the acceleration depends on the force and your mass. F = ma. Because your mass isn’t very big
compared to the earth, you end up with a pretty good acceleration – enough to make you move.

What about the earth? It also had a force exerted on it – the one from your foot pushing on it.
Does it also get accelerated? Well, yes, it has to. The same magnitude force is acting on it. Why
then don’t you notice the earth moving away from you? The second law is involved here. F =
ma, but this time the mass of the earth is huge (6.0 x 1024 kg) compared to your mass. If your
mass is 60 kg, the earth is 1023 times more massive than you. That means that the acceleration
acting on the earth is 1023 times smaller than your acceleration. It is so small that it cannot be
measured. But it is real.

Because the forces are the same, the mass times the acceleration must equal the same thing. So,

m
we get:

earth
a
earth
= m
you
a you

Rockets work because of the third law. A common misconception is that a R ocket push es
rocket works by pushing against air. We know this is not true because rockets gas
work in outer space where there is no air to push against. The way a rocket
works is like this: hot gases, the products of combustion, are blasted out of the
end of the rocket. They are pushed away from the rocket, but according to the
third law if the rocket pushes the exhaust gases away, the exhaust gases must
push the rocket in the opposite direction. So, the rocket goes. gas push es
rocket
Here is the classic third law conundrum. An acquaintance tells you, “There’s no way a horse
can pull a wagon.”

You say, “No way that’s true because horses pull wagons all the time!” (You’ve been around,
you see, and no one can fool with you.)

“No, I’m right. The horse can’t pull a wagon. See, if the horse pulls on a wagon, then according
to the third law the wagon must pull on the horse with an equal and opposite force. Since the
two forces are equal and opposite, they cancel out, so the horse can’t pull the cart!”

The argument sort of makes sense, but you know that it must be flawed because it is clearly not
true. So, what’s the deal?

Action/reaction force pairs never cancel each other out – they can’t because they are partners in
the same action force. Can you touch your mother without being touched by her? Does your
mother touching your finger when your finger touches her cancel out the touch? Can a single-
hand clap? Pretty heavy stuff.

To have forces cancel out; they have to be different forces. An example of this would be if we
had two horses hitched to the same wagon pulling in opposite directions. The forces the horses
exert would then cancel out and the wagon wouldn’t move. These would be two separate forces
that do cancel out.

The horse does indeed pull on the wagon and the wagon pulls on the horse in accordance with
the third law. The wagon pulling on the horse results in keeping the horse from running off
really fast – the horse is slowed down by the extra mass of the cart, so its acceleration is much
smaller than if it were not hitched to the wagon.

The horse moves, dragging the wagon with it, by pushing the earth away from it. The earth
pushes back on the horse, so the horse and wagon move. The earth moves away as well, but,
because its mass is so huge (as previously discussed), we can’t measure its acceleration.

The horse and wagon move because the horse pushes against the earth. What would happen if
you tried to make your car move by sitting in it and pushing on the dashboard? Would the car
move?