Unit 1.5.

Forces
IGCSE Physics
(Sy. 2023-25)
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 Learning Objectives (Sy. 2023-25)
1.5.1. Effects of Forces 1.5.1. Effects of Forces
• Know that forces may produce changes in the • Describe solid friction as the force between two
size and shape of an object. surfaces that may impede motion and produce
• Sketch, plot and interpret load-extension heating.
graphs for an elastic solid and describe the • Know that friction (drag) acts on an object
associated experimental procedures. moving through a liquid.
• Determine the resultant of two or more forces • Know that friction (drag) acts on an object
acting along the same straight line. moving through a gas (e.g. air resistance).
• Know that an object either remains at rest or • Define the spring constant as force per unit
continues in a straight line at constant speed F
extension; recall and use the equation k = .
unless acted on by a resultant force. x
• Define and use the term ‘limit of proportionality’
• State that a resultant force may change the
for a load-extension graph and identify this point
velocity of an object by changing its direction of
on the graph.
motion or its speed.
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 Learning Objectives (Sy. 2023-25)
1.5.2. Turning Effect of Forces
1.5.1. Effects of Forces
• Recall and use the equation F = ma and know • Describe the moment of a force as a measure of
its turning effect and give everyday examples.
that the force and the acceleration are in
• Define the moment of a force as
the same direction.
moment = force  perpendicular distance from the
• Describe, qualitatively, motion in a circular
pivot; recall and use this equation.
path due to a force perpendicular to the
• Apply the principle of moments to situations with
motion as:
one force each side of the pivot, including
a. speed increases if force increases, with
balancing of a beam.
mass and radius constant.
• State that, when there is no resultant force and
b. radius decreases if force increases, with
no resultant moment, an object is in equilibrium.
mass and speed constant.
• Apply the principle of moments to other
c. an increased mass requires an increased
situations, including those with more than one
force to keep speed and radius constant
force each side of the pivot.
m+2
(F= is not required). Describe an experiment to demonstrate that
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r
•
there is no resultant moment on an object in
equilibrium.
 Learning Objectives (Sy. 2023-25)
1.5.3. Centre of Gravity
• State what is meant by centre of gravity.
• Describe an experiment to determine the position
of the centre of gravity of an irregularly shaped
plane lamina.
• Describe, qualitatively, the effect of the position
of the centre of gravity on the stability of simple
objects.
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 1.5.1. Effects of Forces
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 Forces
A force is a push or pull, exerted by one object on another.
It has direction as well as magnitude (size), so force is a vector quantity.
The SI Unit of force is newton (N).
When a force exerted on an object, it can change the object’s:
● speed,
● direction of movement,
● shape of the object.
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Force can be measured using a newtonmeter or dynamometer.

 Forces
Some examples of forces:
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 Contact Forces
When two objects in contact, they may exerted the force on each other, this force
called as contact force.
● Friction force, is the contact force that opposes objects moving relative to each
other. Friction acts between two sliding surfaces. Friction can also act to stop
something beginning to move.
● Air resistance or drag, is a force that acts on an object moving through the
fluid.
● Tension, is the force exerted through a rope when we pull something.
● Normal contact force, is the force that supports an object that is resting on a
surface such as a table or the floor. The normal contact force always
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perpendicular on the surface where the object is resting.

 Non-Contact Forces
Non-contact force is the forces that act between object that physically
separated.
● Gravity, the Earth pulls downward every object whether in contact with it
or not. The Sun’s gravity acts over great distances to keep the Earth and
other planets in orbit.
● Electrostatic forces, these are forces that act between charged objects.
By rubbing a balloon you can charge it and stick it to the wall.
● Magnetic forces, a magnet can attract objects made from iron or steel or
ferromagnetic materials towards it.
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 Resultant Forces
Since force is a vector, so we can do addition to all forces that act on an
object.
A number of forces acting on an object may be replaced by a single force that
has the same effect as all the forces acting together. This single force is
called the resultant force.
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 Resultant Force
To determine the resultant force, we can draw a free body diagram. Free body
diagram are used to show the magnitude and direction of all forces that act
in an object. When the resultant force = 0, the object is in equilibrium.
From diagram, we can determine the
resultant force that acts on the
object:

F H = Fa + Ff = 50 + −10
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FH = 40 N
 Resultant Force
Example #2:
A policeman standing still on his position, his weight is 800 N. Calculate the
resultant force acts on the policeman.
Answer #2:
W = 800 N
N = 800 N
∑ Fv = N + W
∑ Fv = 800 + −800 = 0 N
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 Adding Vectors
Since the force is vector quantity, we can consider that a force as a vector.
Vectors are represented by an arrow, the arrowhead indicates the direction
of the vector and the length of the arrow represents the magnitude.
From the diagram, we can determine the
resultant force by determined the component
force vectors.
Component vectors are sometimes drawn with
dotted line and a subscript indicating
horizontal or vertical. For example, Fv is the
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vertical component of the force F.

 Adding Vectors
Vectors at right angles to one another can be combined into one resultant
vector. The resultant will have the same effect as the two original ones.
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 Adding Vectors
By using Pythagoras’ theorem, we can find the resultant force.
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 Adding Vectors
To find the angle, we can use trigonometry.
The mnemonic ‘soh-cah-toa’ is used to remember how to apply sines and
cosines to resolve the sides of a triangle.
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 Adding Vectors
Example:
A hiker walks a distance of 6 km due east and 10 km due north. Calculate the
magnitude of their displacement and its direction from the horizontal.
Answer:
ResCDEFnG veHEIr = 6 2 +102
ResCDEFnG veHEIr = 136
Resultant vector = 11.66 km.
opNIOLte 10
DirKHELon = taM θ = = = 59°
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adPQRSnG 6
 Resultant Force
Exercise:
A box which is being pulled along the floor, with a force of 10 N. However the
force is applied at an angle of 37º to the horizontal.
How much of the force is being used to pull the box along the ground?
How much of the force is being used to lift up the box vertically?
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 Resultant Force
Answer:
F = 10 N;  = 37º; Fx = ……?; Fy = ……?
Draw the vectors’ components as a free body diagram, use trigonometry to
solve.
Fx = F cos  = 10 cos 37º
Fx = 7.99 N  8 N
Fy = F sin  = 10 sin 37º
Fy = 6.02 N  6 N
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 Resultant Force
Homework:
1. A car of mass 800 kg being towed by a truck. The tension in towing cable
is 500 N at the angle 35º to the horizontal. Calculate the force to move
the car in horizontal line?
2. A 100 N force is acting at an angle of 45º with the horizontal.
Determine the horizontal and vertical components of this force.
3. A 750 N force is acting at horizontal line. Calculate the resultant force is
the angle due to the vertical is 65º.
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 Newton’s First Law of Motion
Newton’s first law of motion sometime knows as law of inertia.
● A moving object will continue to move at the same speed and direction
unless an external force acts on it.
● A stationary object will remain at rest unless an external force acts on it.
Mathematically, Newton’s first law of motion defined as:

Balanced force (zero resultant force) will not change the velocity of the
object. Unbalanced force (non-zero resultant force) will change the speed
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and/or direction of the object.

 Newton’s Second Law of Motion
The acceleration of an object is a measure of how much its velocity changes in
a certain of time.
The acceleration in the direction of a resultant force depends on:
● the size of the force (for the same mass, the bigger the force the bigger
the acceleration),
● the mass of the object (for the same force, the more massive the object
the smaller the acceleration).
Mathematically, Newton’s 2nd law of motion defined as:
foZRK = ma[O acHK\SraG]^_
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F=ma
 Newton’s Third Law of Motion
Newton’s 3rd law of motion is about the
forces on two different objects when they
interact with each other.
It stated as “every action has an equal
and opposite reaction”.
The two forces act on two different
objects and both forces are the same type.
Mathematically, it defined as:
FacG]^_ = − FreQHELon
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 Newton’s Laws of Motion
Example #1:
An apple has a mass of 100g. Calculate its weight on Earth
(use g = 10 N/kg).

Answer #1:
m = 100 g = 0.1 kg; g = 10 N/kg or 10 m/s2
Weight = ......?

W = mass  gravitational field strength

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W = 0.1  10 = 1 N
 Newton’s Laws of Motion
Example #2:
Calculate the force required to give a car with a mass of 1600 kg, accelerate
to 4.5 m/s2.

Answer #2:
mass = 1600 kg; acceleration = 4.5 m/s2; Force = ……?
Force = mass  acceleration
Force = 1600  4.5
Force = 7200 N
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 Newton’s Laws of Motion
Exercise:
1. A soldier practices his shooting skill with his rifle. What will happen
when he shoots his rifle? What are Newton’s laws of motion that
suit this action?
2. A car was involved in an accident; the car hit an electricity pole but
the driver is okay because she is wearing a seatbelt. Describe this
event. What are Newton’s laws of motion that suit this action?
3. Suppose a car with the driver on it having a total mass of 1200 kg.
The driver press the brake and reduces its velocity from 8.5 m/s to 0
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m/s in 5 s. What is the magnitude of the braking force?

 Forces on the Falling Bodies
On Earth, a falling object has a force of air resistance on it as well as its weight.
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 Friction and Braking
Friction is the force that tries to stop materials sliding
across each other.
Friction prevents machinery from moving freely and
heats up its moving parts.
There are two types of friction:
● static friction, occurs between two objects at rest,
● Dynamic friction, occurs between two objects in
motion.
Air resistance or drag is a form of dynamic friction
and happens in fluids.
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Dynamic friction heats material up.

 Friction and Braking
In an emergency, the driver of a car may have to
react quickly and apply the brakes. The car’s
stopping distance is the sum of the following:
● the thinking distance, this is how far a car
travels before the brakes are applied, while
the driver is still reacting.
● the braking distance, this is how far the car
travels after the brakes have been applied.
It takes an average driver to react and press the
brake pedal. This is the driver reaction time.
During this time, the car does not slow down and
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the more speed it has, the further it travels.

 Forces and Elasticity
Forces are responsible for changing the motion of objects and also the shape
of objects.
If more than one force is present, the shape of an object can also be
changed. It can bending, stretching, compressing or even the combination of
all three shape changes.
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 Forces and Elasticity
A change in shape is called deformation.
There are two types of deformations:
● elastic deformation is reversed when the force is removed,
● Inelastic deformation is not fully reversed when the force is removed or
permanent change in shape.
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 Hooke’s Law
Law of elasticity discovered by the an English scientist, Robert Hooke in 1660.
Hooke’s law states that the strain of the material is proportional to the applied
stress within the elastic limit of that material.
Extension happens when an object increases in length.
The extension of an elastic object, such as springs, is described by Hooke’s law:
force = spring constant  extension
F=kx
The unit of spring constant is N/m or cm/N
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 Hooke’s Law
The example of common experiment used to investigate Hooke’s law
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 Hooke’s Law
Hooke’s law says that the extension of an
elastic object is directly proportional to the
force applied to it.
● if the force is doubled, the extension
doubles,
● if no force is applied, there is no
extension.
In a Force-Extension graph:
● steeper the line, the stiffer the spring.
● the area under the line is the work done
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(energy needed) to stretch the spring.

 Hooke’s Law
Spring constant is a measure
of the stiffness of a spring up
to its limit of proportionality
or elastic limit.
The limit of proportionality
refers to the point beyond
which Hooke’s law is no longer
true when stretching a
material.
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 Hooke’s Law
Example:
A force of 3 N is applied to a spring. The spring stretches reversible by 15 cm.
What is the spring constant of that spring?
Answer:
F = 3 N; x = 15 cm; k = …?
F
F=kx → k=
x
3
k= = 0.2 N/cd
15
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 Hooke’s Law
Exercise:
1. A man uses a spring scale to weight a fish. The springs stretches 8 cm. If
the spring constant of the scale is 200 N/m, what is the weight of the
fish?
2. The length of a spring is 20 cm, when the spring is loaded with a mass of
250 g, the spring’s length increased to 24 cm. Calculate the spring
constant.
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 Circular Motion
Velocity and acceleration are both vector quantities and the velocity of an
object is its speed in a given direction.
When an object travels along a circular path, its velocity is always changing:
● the speed of the object moving in a circle might be constant, it is travelling
the same distance every second.
● the direction of travel is always changing as the moves along the circular
path.
It means that an object moving in circular motion travels at a constant speed
but has a changing velocity.
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 Circular Motion
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 Circular Motion
An object moving in a circle is not in
equilibrium as it has a resultant force
acting upon it. This is known as the
centripetal force and is what keeps the
object moving in a circle.
The centripetal force (F) is defined as,
the resultant perpendicular force towards
the centre of the circle required to keep a
body in uniform circular motion.
The centripetal force and centripetal
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acceleration act in the same direction.

 Circular Motion
Example of circular motion:
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 1.5.2. Turning Effect of Forces
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 Turning Effect of Forces
When forces act on an object at one end of the
object and the other end as a pivot, it will causes
a turning effect.
This turning effect of a force is called moment of
a force.
Moment occurs when forces cause objects to
rotate about the same pivot.
Turning effect of a force is depends on:
● the size of the force
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● the distance between the force and the pivot

 Turning Effect of Forces
A lever is a simple tool such as rod which uses the principle of moment to make
work easier.
It involves moving a load around a pivot or fulcrum using a force or effort.
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 Turning Effect of Forces
Moment directly proportional to the force and
perpendicular distance.
Mathematically, its define as:
moment = Force  perpendicular distance
moment = F  d
The unit of moment is Nm, and moment is a vector
quantity, it has a magnitude and direction.
There are two movement of moments, clockwise and
anticlockwise or counterclockwise.
By convention, counterclockwise moments are
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positive and clockwise moments are negative.

 Turning Effect of Forces
Examples #1:
Calculate the moment of force of a gate with length 3 m and the force applied
at the end of the gate from the hinge is 5 N.
Answer #1:
F = 5 N; length = 3 m
Moment = ……?
moment = F  d
moment = 5  3
moment = 15 Nm
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 Turning Effect of Forces
Example #2:
A beam with a length 50 cm is turning clockwise at one end with a force of 10
N. The other end acts as the pivot point.
What is the moment of the force of the beam?
Answer #2:
length = 50 cm = 0.5 m; F = -10 N
moment = force  distance
moment = -10  0.5
moment = -5 Nm
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 Turning Effect of Forces
Exercise:
1. A student want to pulls a rock, by sitting at the end of a lever, the other
end of the lever below the rock acts as a pivot. If the lever has a length of
2.0 m, calculate the moment caused by the student if the weight of student
is 50 kg? (the weight of lever neglected).
2. Calculate the length of a beam that created the moment of 35 Nm if 70 N
effort is given to the end of that beam. The other end of the beam acts as
the pivot.
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 Balancing A Beam
When the beam is balanced or in equilibrium, its mean that the resultant
force is zero and resultant moment also zero.
The law of moment (also called the law of the lever) is stated,
“when a body is in equilibrium the sum of the clockwise moments about any
point equals the sum of the anticlockwise moment about the same point. There
is no net moment on a body which is in equilibrium”.
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modK_t = anG]Rl^Hewi[K modK_t = cDoRkf]OS modK_t = 0

 Balancing A Beam
Example:
A beam is in equilibrium or balanced on a pivot as shown in the diagram below. Calculate the
weight at C.
Answer:
Step 1: Determine which moments are acw and
cw, then calculate based on acw and cw moment.
acw moments = moment A + moment B
acw moments = (320  3) + (540  1)
acw moments = 960 + 540 = 1500 Nm
cw moments = W  3 = 3W
Since the beam in equilibrium, acw = cw
1500 = 3W
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W = 1500 / 3 = 500 N
 Balancing A Beam
Exercise #1:
Sam and Jess are sat at opposite ends of a seesaw. Jess weighs 300 N and is sat 3 m
away from the centre of the pivot. Sam weighs 450 N. Whilst they are sat in their
current positions, the seesaw is balanced.
How far away is Sam sat from the centre of the pivot?
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 Balancing A Beam
Exercise #2:
Continue from Execise #1, Sam moves his position on the seesaw, and moves his bag
from the ground onto his side of the seesaw. The distance between pivot and Sam is
double of the distance between pivot and the bag. The bag weighs 100 N. Jess has
not moved, the seesaw is still balanced. How far is the bag from the pivot?
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 1.5.3. Centre of Gravity
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 Centre of Gravity
A body behaves as if its whole mass were concentrated at one point, called its
centre of mass or centre of gravity.
The body’s weight can be considered to act at this point.
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 Centre of Gravity
For a simple rigid bodies with uniform density, the centre of mass is located at
the centroid.
For example, the centre of mass of a uniform disc shape would be at its
centre. Sometimes the centre of mass doesn’t fall anywhere on the object.
The centre of mass of a ring, for example, is located at its centre, where there
isn’t any material.
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 Centre of Gravity
To determine the centre of mass of an irregular shaped body with uniform
density, we can use a plumb line.
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 Stability
An object is stable when its
centre of mass lies above its base.
Stability is a measure of how likely
it is for an object to topple over
when pushed or moved.
Stable object are very difficult to
topple over, while unstable object
topple very easily.
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 Stability
For an object to be stable it must have:
● a wide base,
● a low centre of gravity
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 Stability
There are three terms are used in connection with stability.
1. Stable equilibrium, if it slightly displaced and then it return to its previous position.
2. Unstable equilibrium, if it moves further away from its previous position when slightly
displaced and released.
3. Neutral equilibrium, if it stays in its new position when displaced. Its centre mass or
gravity does not rise or fall because there is no moment to increase or decrease the
displacement.
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 Stability
Examples #1:
The Bunsen burner, as shown in the figure below, in three positions.
State in which position it is in
i. stable equilibrium
ii. unstable equilibrium
iii. neutral equilibrium.
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 Stability
Examples #2:
The weight of the uniform bar in the figure below is 10 N. Does it balance, or tip to
the left or tip to right?
Answer #2:
moment = momentacw + momentcw
moment = (Facw  dacw) + (Fcw  dcw)
moment = (3 N  30 cm) + (-10 N  10 cm)
moment = 30 Ncm – 100 Ncm
moment = -70 Ncm
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Since the sign is negative, the bar will tip in

clockwise direction or tip to the right
 Turning Effect of Forces & Centre of Gravity
Exercise:
Please answer all of the questions in your Physics Coursebook.
Question No. 1 - 8 on page 79 – 82.
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 THANK YOU!
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 Reference
http://kippmemphisburesh.weebly.com/67---mass-and-weight-2.html
https://www.windows2universe.org/?page=/glossary/mass.html
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