Lecture 8

Forces, Newton’s 1st and 2nd Laws, Newton’s Law of Gravitation

Classical Mechanics

We will now start to study Newton’s laws of dynamics. In dynamics (contrary to

kinematics) we do care about the forces responsible for the accelerations. In fact the
purpose of dynamics is to study the relation between forces acting on bodies an the
motion of the same bodies.

What you will learn in this course is known as classical mechanics, in large part
formulated by Newton in 1600’s. It is called classical mechanics because only later on it
was realized that it does not work in two extreme cases:

1. In the case of motion on extremely small scale (the size of an atom), where
quantum mechanics is needed;
2. In the case of velocities comparable to the speed of light, where special relativity
is needed.

Furthermore, we will learn the law of gravitation, also discovered by Newton. We often
refer to that as Newtonian theory. But in the presence of a very strong gravitational field
(for example nearby a black hole) or to describe very large scale (for example a good
chunk of the universe), Newtonian theory does not work so well anymore, and general
relativity is needed. Notice that quantum mechanics, special relativity and general
relativity were all developed more than 300 years after Newton had developed classical
mechanics. Newton also developed the math needed for his theories (calculus), and is
considered one of the main developers of calculus.

Forces

Since we will talk about forces, it is worth mentioning that there are 4 fundamental forces
known in physics:

1. The strong nuclear force between sub-atomic particles (it keeps together the
protons in the nuclei of atoms).
2. The electromagnetic force between electric charges (it keep the electrons orbiting
around the nuclei of atoms and it also binds molecules together)
3. The weak nuclear force (it is responsible for radioactive decay processes)
4. The gravitational force (it attracts massive objects to each other)

Although these forces are listed above in order of decreasing strength, the strong and
weak nuclear forces are felt only within a range of order 10-15 m. Furthermore, such
forces are not part of classical physics, which deals only with electromagnetic forces and
gravitational forces. You will study electromagnetic forces later on this physics 1 series,
while in this course we will consider only the gravitational force, of the 4 fundamental
forces.

These forces are fundamental and special because they act at a distance, without any
contact. It is a real mystery why the planets are attracted by the sun (and as a
consequence they orbit around the sun). The idea that one body could affect the motion of
another body without touching it is very hard to grasp. Physicists have therefore
developed the concept of a field (introduced by Faraday in 1800), and the forces acting at
a distance are called field forces (and their theory is called field theory). The idea is that
the sun affects the motion of the planets through its gravitational field. The force of
gravity due to the sun is therefore present everywhere in space, and is described
(mathematically) by a field (which is simply the value of the force –a vector- at each
place in space).

Inertia and Newton’s First Law

First we need to define what we mean by net force:

The net force acting on an object is the vector sum of all the external forces acting on
that object.

It is very important to remember that this is a vector sum, meaning that the direction (not
only the magnitude) of each force is important. For example, if one of you pushes a table
in one direction, and another of you in the opposite direction, the net force is the sum of
the two forces pushing in opposite directions, and it is even possible that the two forces
cancel out (if you both push with equal strength), in which case you could guess that the
table will not move at all.

Newton’s First Law of motion states that:

An object will continue to remain still, or to move with a constant velocity (both constant
magnitude and constant direction – a straight line) unless acted by a nonzero net force.

We usually do not fully appreciate this law, because in nature there is always some drag,
or friction or some other reason why the motion of an object is gradually decelerated.
Even if you are sliding with your ice-skates on a perfectly smooth layer of ice, sooner or
later you will come to rest, due to a combination of air drag (on your body) and friction
(between the ice and the blades of your skates).

Inertia is the tendency of an object to continue its original state of motion.

Mass and Newton’s Second Law

Mass is a measure of an object resistance to changes in its motion due to a force. In other
words, mass is a measure of inertia. The larger the mass of the object, the smaller the
acceleration caused by a force.

More precisely, Newton’s Second Law states:

The acceleration of an object caused by a force is equal to the force divided by the
object’s mass:

a= F/m

The mass, m, entering this law is also called inertial mass, because it is a measure of the
object’s inertia.

Notice that the force is a vector, while the mass is a positive defined scalar (it is never
negative), so the acceleration (also a vector) has the same direction as the force.

IMPORTANT: There could be many forces acting on a body at the same time, in that
case, in order to apply Newton’s second law, you have to compute the net force, which is
the vector sum of all the forces acting on the body. Newton’s second law then applies to
the net force:

a= ΣF/m

which of course can also be expressed as:

ΣF=ma

or, more simply: f = m a.

The Unit of Force

The SI unit of force is the Newton. The Newton is defined as the force that, acting on a
object of mass equal to 1 kg, causes an acceleration of 1 m/s2 :

1 N = 1 kg m / s2

In other words, the Newton has dimensions of mass, multiplied by length, divided by
time squared.

The Gravitational Force

The gravitational force is the mutual force of attraction between two objects. It is a very
weak force between objects that are not very massive, but very strong if the objects are
very massive.

Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that:

Every pair of objects in the universe attract each other with a force that is proportional
to the product of the masses of the two objects and inversely proportional to the squared
of their separation:

FG = G m1 m2 / r2

where the constant of proportionality, G, is called the universal gravitational constant

and is:

G = 6.67 x 10-11 N m2 / kg2

The mass entering this law is also called gravitational mass, because it is a source of
gravitational force. There is no fundamental reason, at this point, why the inertial mass
and the gravitational mass should be the same, but it is found experimentally that they
are exactly the same, so it is enough to refer to mass, without specifying if we mean
inertial or gravitational.

Weight

The weight is the magnitude of the gravitational force of Earth acting on an object near
Earth’s surface. If the object has mass m, its weight is given by:

w=mg

But based on Newton’s law of gravitation we also know that:

w = G ME m / r2

(where r is the distance to the center of the Earth, not its surface!) and hence the
gravitational acceleration near Earth’s surface is given by:

g = w / m = G ME / r2

Because the weight is a force, it is measured in Newton. So, when I say my weight is for
example 70 Kg, what I really mean is that my mass is 70 kg, as my weight is actually
70x9.8 = 686 N. The mass is an intrinsic property of an object, while the weight depends
on the location. For example on the surface of the Moon I would be several times lighter
than on the surface of the Earth, because gMoon = 1.62 m/s2, and hence my weight would
be 70x1.62 = 113 N, which is 6 times lighter than on Earth’s surface. However, my mass
remains 70 kg, it is my intrinsic property that measures:

Both my resistence to a change of motion due to a force (Newton’s second law), and
my gravitational attraction to another body (Newton’s law of gravitation).

Why the same concept of mass plays both the role of a resistance to any force (inertial
mass) and of a source of gravitational force (gravitational mass) is quite a mistery!
Einstein used the identity of inertial mass and gravitational mass to derive the
geometrical interpretation of gravity in his theory of general relativity. This identity is
also known as the weak version of the equivalence principle.
But nobody knows WHY these two concepts of mass are exactly the same.