9KC - Newtons 1st Law - Know

Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law
Forces
Force & Motion – Newton’s

1 Law
st
9U
Acceleration
Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law Engage
Which of these show balanced forces?
Which show unbalanced forces?

Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law Challenge & Develop
Imagine a ball rolling down a slope…
…will it ever stop rolling? Why?

Now imagine a ball rolling along a flat surface…
…will it ever stop rolling? Why?

Finally imagine a ball which is stationary…
…will it ever start rolling? Why?

Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law Explain
In each of the three cases, the forces on each ball are balanced. There are still forces
present, but there is no resultant force!
Unless and until one of those forces changes; the ball remains the same, travelling in
the same direction, at the same speed, not changing size or shape. (Even if that means
it remains motionless).
This is Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Newton’s 1st Law in action;
What happens when you give the hoverball a light push?

When & Why does it change direction?
If the forces on an object are balanced, the object will

continue to do what it is already doing:
 if the object is stationary, it will remain stationary
 if the object is moving, it will continue to move at the

same speed and in the same direction.
(It will continue to move at the same velocity)
What single word, apart from balanced, could you use to describe the
state of the forces acting on an object obeying Newton’s 1st Law?
The object is in equilibrium; it will not accelerate.

Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law Consolidate & Apply
For each of these examples, explain whether Newton’s 1st Law applies or
not
Book resting on a Raindrops falling to A Pendulum

table the ground swinging
A car turning a A hanging

corner telephone
Imagine a car travelling at a constant speed of 50 km/h.
If the engine is supplying a forward force of 500 N, what must be true of

all the resistive forces combined?
500 N
500 N
Answer the following questions in your books;

1. State Newton’s First Law.
2. This object is accelerating. How can we tell?
15N 25N
3. This object is either at rest or travelling at a constant velocity. How can

we tell?
30N 30N
One of the most important questions to ask about a

situation in which forces are acting on an object is
whether the resultant force in a certain direction is zero.
In this case Newton’s first law applies and a stationary

object will remain at rest and if the object is moving it
will continue to move in a straight line and at constant
velocity.
A normal contact force is exerted on an object by, for

example, the surface of a floor or wall it is in contact
with. The force is at right angles to the surface. In
physics, ‘normal to’ means ‘at right angles to’.
So why do things stop?

Objects stop when the forces acting on them are no longer

balanced.
When a driver presses on their brakes, this brings the car to a

stop as the forward force is no longer equal to the resistive
forces acting in the opposite direction.
Larger objects like a container ship are very

hard to start moving and hard to stop
moving. This is because they have more
mass. They are described as having a
reluctance to start moving – called inertia
from the Latin for laziness!
An Inertia Balance or Wig-Wag can be used to

demonstrate this principle;
https://spark.iop.org/inertia-balance-or-wig-wag
Objects with mass have a tendency to resist changes to their

motion. This tendency is called inertia.
Consider a 10kg block at rest:
It will be fairly difficult to get it moving at 5m/s.

Once it is moving at 5m/s, it will be fairly difficult to get it
to slow down or stop.
A 20kg block will be twice as difficult to get moving at the

same speed. it will also be twice as difficult to stop from the
same speed.
The 20kg block has twice as much inertia as the 10kg block.
Closely related is the concept of inertial mass. Inertial mass is a measure of how
difficult it is to change the velocity of an object.
inertial mass = force ÷acceleration
Answer the following questions in your book;

1. Define “inertia”
2. Which has more inertia, a moving 2kg block or a stationary 6kg block?
3. What does “inertial mass” measure?
4. Give the formula for inertial mass.
5. An object requires 200N to accelerate it by 5m/s. Calculate its inertial mass in
kg.
1. The weight of the apple in is 1 N. What is the force

upwards in the stalk?
2. When the parachutist in opens the parachute:
a. What will happen to the size of the drag force?
b. Will the two forces still be in balance
immediately after the parachute opens?
3. Is it always true that when all the forces on an
object balance out it will be stationary?
4. If the resultant of two forces is zero, what must be
true about:
a. their size?
b. their direction?
Forces
Newton’s 3 Law
rd
9U
Acceleration
When the military fire field guns, why don’t they stand directly behind
them?
The students in the top right are sitting on a wheeled platform. What will
happen when the rope is pulled?
Both students are sitting on wheeled trollies.

What will happen when one student pushes the other?
The girl is seated on a wheeled trolley.

What will happen when the boy throws her a heavy sandbag?
The boy is seated on a wheeled trolley.

What will happen when the boy throws a heavy sandbag away from
himself?
A force cannot exist on its own – there is always a second force acting
against it.
This forms the basis of Newton’s third law of motion, which states:
Whenever two objects interact, the forces they exert on

each other are equal and opposite.
These pairs of forces that act between two objects are sometimes
called action–reaction pairs.
Newton’s 3rd Law is often quoted as “For every action, there is an….”
A football rests on flat ground. There are four key forces

acting between the ball and the Earth. What are they?
 The ball presses down on the ground.
 The ground reacts to the ball.
 Earth’s gravity acts on the ball.
 The ball’s gravity acts on the Earth.

Whenever two objects interact, the forces they exert on each other are equal and
opposite. Forces always come in pairs.
List all the horizontal forces acting here, between the car, the
caravan and the road:
 The car pushes the road backwards.

 The road pushes the car forwards.
 The car pulls the caravan forwards.
 The caravan pulls the car backwards.
If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, how do

unbalanced forces ever occur?
Newton’s third law applies only to forces between objects.

Pairs of action and reaction forces are of the same kind.
This diagram shows a pair of frictional forces between a box

and the ground: friction of the box on the ground, and friction
of the ground on the box.
If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, how do

unbalanced forces ever occur?
When considering the forces that cause acceleration, they must all act on the
same object. These forces can be considered individually and can be of different
kinds.
For instance the pulling force on this box is

not equal to the frictional force acting
against it, so the box will start to move to
the right.
Free body diagrams only include the forces that act on one object. This makes it
easy to work out whether the forces on it are balanced or not, and whether the object
will accelerate.
For example;
Reaction force Reaction force
Force from from from
Boy pushing on skateboard skateboard
Girl
Force from Girl

Weight of
Weight of pushing on Boy
Boy
Girl
Each free body diagram only shows the forces acting on that object – either the
girl or the boy.
Add one arrow to each diagram to complete the third law pairs:
a) an arrow showing the wall pushing back on the person;

b) an arrow showing the quayside pushing back on the person;
c) an arrow showing the recoil of the gun;
d) an arrow showing the other ice skater pushing on the first ice skater
How many pairs of balanced, unbalanced and action–reaction forces can you
spot?
Forces
Heavy or Massive?
9U
Acceleration
How much did the Apple which

Isaac Newton observed falling
weigh?
What unit do we measure weight

in?
Would the apple weigh the same on

the Earth as on the Moon?
Weight is a force and is caused by the pull of gravity acting

on an object. Like other forces, weight is measured in
newtons and has both magnitude and direction.
Weight has different values depending on where the object is

in the Universe.
What is the difference therefore

between weight and mass?
You are going to carry out a practical Method

investigation to determine whether there is a 1. Begin by finding the mass of the bag and of each of
your objects. Record these masses in a suitable table.
link between mass and weight.
2. Attach the bag to the force meter, and record its
weight.
Apparatus 3. Put each object in turn into the bag, attach the bag to
the force meter and calculate the weight of each
• Balance • Range of objects
• Force meter (or • Bag/string to suspend object. Record these weights in the table.
Newtonmeter) objects
Analysis & Evaluation

To establish whether there is a link between two factors, it is useful to plot a graph.
1. Plot a graph of weight on the y-axis against mass on the x-axis.
2. Draw a straight line of best fit through the points on your graph.
3. Calculate the gradient of the line of best fit.
4. The value of this gradient is equal to the gravitational field strength. How close to the accepted value of 9.8
N/kg is your value?
Your graph should end up something like this;
How would you describe this relationship?

Two quantities are said to be in direct proportion if

they increase and decrease at the same rate. That is, if
the ratio between the two quantities is always the
same.
For example, the weight of an object is directly

proportional to its mass.
If the mass doubles its weight will also double.

When two quantities y and x are directly proportional to each other we can link them with
the symbol .
We write y  x or in this case mass  weight

Gravity is the force that attracts objects with

mass towards each other.
The bigger the mass of the object, the stronger

the force of gravity.
For example, an apple will have the same mass on

Earth as on the Moon, but its weight will be
different.
The Earth has a bigger mass than the Moon, and so exerts a
stronger gravitational pull on the apple.
So how would you define mass & weight?

Mass vs. Weight

Mass is the amount of matter in an object and is measured in kilograms.
Mass is not a force and has the same value anywhere in the Universe, including outer
space.
Weight is a force and is caused by the pull of gravity acting on a mass. Like other
forces, weight is measured in newtons and has both magnitude and direction.
Weight has different values depending on where the object is in the Universe.
The weight of an object depends on its mass and the gravitational

field strength:
weight = mass × gravitational field strength
The units for these quantities are as follows:

 Weight is measured in newtons (N).
 Mass is measured in kilograms (kg).
 Gravitational field strength is measured in newtons per kilogram (N/kg).
The gravitational field strength depends on the force of gravity. On Earth it is 9.81
N/kg (usually rounded to 10N/kg), but it varies on different planets depending on their
size.
A car has a mass

mass of
of 10,000
10,000 kg
kg
(Using 10N/kg for gravitational
gravitationalfield
strength)
field strength)
What is the weight of the car?
Weight = mass x gravitational field strength
= 10 000 kg x 10 N/kg
= 100 000 N
An astronaut and their equipment have a

combined mass of 150kg.
(Using 1.6N/kg for gravitational
gravitational field
field
strength)
strength)
What is their weight when standing on
the moon?
Weight = mass x gravitational field strength
= 150 kg x 1.6 N/kg
= 240 N
Complete the questions from the sheet

in your books

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Newton’s 1st (& 3rd) Law

Force & Motion – Newton’s

Which of these show balanced forces?

Which show unbalanced forces?

Imagine a ball rolling down a slope…

…will it ever stop rolling? Why?

Now imagine a ball rolling along a flat surface…

…will it ever stop rolling? Why?

Finally imagine a ball which is stationary…

…will it ever start rolling? Why?

This is Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Newton’s 1st Law in action;

What happens when you give the hoverball a light push?

If the forces on an object are balanced, the object will

 if the object is moving, it will continue to move at the

The object is in equilibrium; it will not accelerate.

Book resting on a Raindrops falling to A Pendulum

A car turning a A hanging

Imagine a car travelling at a constant speed of 50 km/h.

If the engine is supplying a forward force of 500 N, what must be true of

Answer the following questions in your books;

3. This object is either at rest or travelling at a constant velocity. How can

One of the most important questions to ask about a

In this case Newton’s first law applies and a stationary

A normal contact force is exerted on an object by, for

So why do things stop?

Objects stop when the forces acting on them are no longer

When a driver presses on their brakes, this brings the car to a

Larger objects like a container ship are very

An Inertia Balance or Wig-Wag can be used to

Objects with mass have a tendency to resist changes to their

It will be fairly difficult to get it moving at 5m/s.

A 20kg block will be twice as difficult to get moving at the

Answer the following questions in your book;

1. The weight of the apple in is 1 N. What is the force

Both students are sitting on wheeled trollies.

The girl is seated on a wheeled trolley.

The boy is seated on a wheeled trolley.

Whenever two objects interact, the forces they exert on

A football rests on flat ground. There are four key forces

 The ball presses down on the ground.

 The ground reacts to the ball.

 Earth’s gravity acts on the ball.

 The ball’s gravity acts on the Earth.

 The car pushes the road backwards.

If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, how do

Newton’s third law applies only to forces between objects.

This diagram shows a pair of frictional forces between a box

If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, how do

For instance the pulling force on this box is

Force from Girl

a) an arrow showing the wall pushing back on the person;

How much did the Apple which

What unit do we measure weight

Would the apple weigh the same on

Weight is a force and is caused by the pull of gravity acting

Weight has different values depending on where the object is

What is the difference therefore

You are going to carry out a practical Method