Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics

Newton's First Law (Law of Inertia)

Let's restate Newton's first law in everyday terms:

An object at rest will stay at rest, forever, as long as nothing pushes or pulls on it. An object in motion
will stay in motion, traveling in a straight line, forever, until something pushes or pulls on it.

The "forever" part is difficult to swallow sometimes. But imagine that you have three ramps set up as shown below.
Also imagine that the ramps are infinitely long and infinitely smooth. You let a marble roll down the first ramp, which is
set at a slight incline. The marble speeds up on its way down the ramp. Now, you give a gentle push to the marble
going uphill on the second ramp. It slows down as it goes up. Finally, you push a marble on a ramp that represents the
middle state between the first two -- in other words, a ramp that is perfectly horizontal. In this case, the marble will
neither slow down nor speed up. In fact, it should keep rolling. Forever.

Which person in this ring will be harder to move? The

sumo wrestler or the little boy?
According to Newton's first law, the marble on that
bottom ramp should just keep going. And going.

Physicists use the term inertia to describe this tendency of an object to resist a change in its motion. The Latin root for
inertia is the same root for "inert," which means lacking the ability to move. So you can see how scientists came up
with the word. What's more amazing is that they came up with the concept. Inertia isn't an immediately apparent
physical property, such as length or volume. It is, however, related to an object's mass. To understand how, consider
the sumo wrestler and the boy shown above.
Let's say the wrestler on the left has a mass of 136 kilograms, and the boy on the right has a mass of 30 kilograms
(scientists measure mass in kilograms). Remember the object of sumo wrestling is to move your opponent from his
position. Which person in our example would be easier to move? Common sense tells you that the boy would be easier
to move, or less resistant to inertia.
By taking this type of stance they have made their moment of inertia (which is a measurement of the difficulty in
changing the speed and direction of an object) as large as they possibly can Only when one of the wrestlers manages
to use some wrestling skill and application of forces to get their opponents centre of mass moving. so that the
opponents centre of mass travels outside his base will he be able to make his opponent topple and win the match.
You experience inertia in a moving car all the time. In fact, seatbelts exist in cars specifically to counteract the effects
of inertia. Imagine for a moment that a car at a test track is traveling at a speed of 55 mph. Now imagine that a crash
test dummy is inside that car, riding in the front seat. If the car slams into a wall, the dummy flies forward into the
dashboard. Why? Because, according to Newton's first law, an object in motion will remain in motion until an outside
force acts on it. When the car hits the wall, the dummy keeps moving in a straight line and at a constant speed until the
dashboard applies a force. Seatbelts hold dummies (and passengers) down, protecting them from their own inertia.
Interestingly, Newton wasn't the first scientist to come up with the law of inertia. That honor goes to Galileo and to
René Descartes. In fact, the marble-and-ramp thought experiment described previously is credited to Galileo. Newton
owed much to events and people who preceded him. Before we continue with his other two laws, let's review some of
the important history that informed them.
 Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics

Newton's Second Law (Law of Motion)

You may be surprised to learn that Newton wasn't the genius behind the law of inertia. But Newton himself wrote that
he was able to see so far only because he stood on "the shoulders of Giants." And see far he did. Although the law of
inertia identified forces as the actions required to stop or start motion, it didn't quantify those forces. Newton's second
law supplied the missing link by relating force to acceleration. This is what it said:

When a force acts on an object, the object accelerates in the direction of the force. If the mass of an
object is held constant, increasing force will increase acceleration. If the force on an object remains
constant, increasing mass will decrease acceleration. In other words, force and acceleration are directly
proportional, while mass and acceleration are inversely proportional.

Technically, Newton equated force to the differential change in momentum per unit time. Momentum is a characteristic
of a moving body determined by the product of the body's mass and velocity. To determine the differential change in
momentum per unit time, Newton developed a new type of math -- differential calculus. His original equation looked
something like this:
F = (m)(Δv/Δt)
where the delta (Δ) symbols signify change. Because acceleration is defined as the instantaneous change in velocity in
an instant of time (Δv/Δt), the equation is often rewritten as:

F = ma
The equation form of Newton's second law allows us to specify a unit of measurement for force. Because the standard
unit of mass is the kilogram (kg) and the standard unit of acceleration is meters per second squared (m/s 2), the unit for
force must be a product of the two -- (kg)(m/s2). This is a little awkward, so scientists decided to use a Newton as the
official unit of force. One Newton, or N, is equivalent to 1 kilogram-meter per second squared. There are 4.448 N in 1
pound.
So what can you do with Newton's second law? As it turns out, F = ma lets you quantify motion of every variety. Let's
say, for example, you want to calculate the acceleration of the dog led shown below.

Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3

If you want to calculate the Notice that doubling the force by If two dogs are on each side, then the
acceleration, first you need to modify adding another dog doubles the total force pulling to the left (200 N)
acceleration. Oppositely, doubling the
the force equation to get a = F/m. When balances the total force pulling to the
mass to 100 kg would halve the
you plug in the numbers for force (100 acceleration to 2 m/s2. right (200 N). That means the net force
N) and mass (50 kg), you find that the on the sled is zero, so the sled doesn’t
acceleration is 2 m/s2. move.
 Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics

Now let's say that the mass of the sled stays at 50 kg and that another dog is added to the team. If we assume the
second dog pulls with the same force as the first (100 N), the total force would be 200 N and the acceleration would be
4 m/s2.

Finally, let's imagine that a second dog team is attached to the sled so that it can pull in the opposite direction.
This is important because Newton's second law is concerned with net forces. We could rewrite the law to say: When
a net force acts on an object, the object accelerates in the direction of the net force. Now imagine that one of the dogs
on the left breaks free and runs away. Suddenly, the force pulling to the right is larger than the force pulling to the left,
so the sled accelerates to the right.

What's not so obvious in our examples is that the sled is also applying a force on the dogs. In other words, all forces
act in pairs. This is Newton's third law…. Speaking of which!

Newton's Third Law (Law of Force Pairs)

Newton's third law is probably the most familiar. Everyone knows that every action has an equal and opposite reaction,
right? Unfortunately, this statement lacks some necessary detail. This is a better way to say it:

A force is exerted by one object on another object. In other words, every force involves the interaction
of two objects. When one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object also exerts a force
on the first object. The two forces are equal in strength and oriented in opposite directions.

Many people have trouble visualizing this law because it's not as intuitive. In fact, the best way to discuss the law of
force pairs is by presenting examples. Let's start by considering a swimmer facing the wall of a pool. If she places her
feet on the wall and pushes hard, what happens? She shoots backward, away from the wall.

Figure 1 Figure 2

That's one heck of a force! A baseball player shatters his bat.

Clearly, the swimmer is applying a force to the wall, but her motion indicates that a force is being applied to her, too.
This force comes from the wall, and it's equal in magnitude and opposite in direction.

Next, think about a book lying on a table. What forces are acting on it? One big force is Earth's gravity. In fact, the
book's weight is a measurement of Earth's gravitational attraction. So, if we say the book weighs 10 N, what we're
really saying is that Earth is applying a force of 10 N on the book. The force is directed straight down, toward the center
of the planet. Despite this force, the book remains motionless, which can only mean one thing: There must be another
force, equal to 10 N, pushing upward. That force is coming from the table.
 Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics
If you're catching on to Newton's third law, you should have noticed another force pair described in the paragraph
above. Earth is applying a force on the book, so the book must be applying a force on Earth. Is that possible? Yes, it is,
but the book is so small that it cannot appreciably accelerate something as large as a planet.

You see something similar, although on a much smaller scale, when a baseball bat strikes a ball. There's no doubt the
bat applies a force to the ball: It accelerates rapidly after being struck. But the ball must also be applying a force to the
bat. The mass of the ball, however, is small compared to the mass of the bat, which includes the batter attached to the
end of it. Still, if you've ever seen a wooden baseball bat break into pieces as it strikes a ball, then you've seen
firsthand evidence of the ball's force.

These examples don't show a practical application of Newton's third law. Is there a way to put force pairs to good
use? Jet propulsion is one application. Used by animals such as squid and octopi, as well as by certain airplanes and
rockets, jet propulsion involves forcing a substance through an opening at high speed. In squid and octopi, the
substance is seawater, which is sucked in through the mantle and ejected through a siphon. Because the animal exerts
a force on the water jet, the water jet exerts a force on the animal, causing it to move. A similar principle is at work in
turbine-equipped jet planes and rockets in space.
Speaking of outer space, Newton's other laws apply there, too. By using his laws to analyze the motion of planets in
space, Newton was able to come up with a universal law of gravitation. We'll explore this further in the next section

The famous (un)true apple story

Could a falling apple be related to a revolving planet or moon? Newton believed

so. This was his thought process to prove it:

1. An apple falling to the ground must be under the influence of a force,

according to his second law. That force is gravity, which causes the apple
to accelerate toward Earth’s center.
2. Newton reasoned that the moon might be under the influence of Earth's
gravity, as well, but he had to explain why the moon didn't fall into Earth.
Unlike the falling apple, it moved parallel to Earth's surface.
3. What if, he wondered, the moon moved about the Earth in the same way
as a stone whirled around at the end of a string? If the holder of the string
let go -- and therefore stopped applying a force -- the stone would obey
the law of inertia and continue traveling in a straight line, like a tangent
extending from the circumference of the circle.

4. But if the holder of the string didn't let go, the stone would travel in a circular path, like the face of a clock. In
one instant, the stone would be at 12 o'clock. In the next, it would be at 3 o'clock. A force is required to pull
the stone inward so it continues its circular path or orbit. The force comes from the holder of the string.
5. Next, Newton reasoned that the moon orbiting Earth was the same as the stone whirling around on its
string. Earth behaved as the holder of the string, exerting an inward-directed force on the moon. This force
was balanced by the moon's inertia, which tried to keep the moon moving in a straight-line tangent to the
circular path.
6. Finally, Newton extended this line of reasoning to any of the planets revolving around the sun. Each planet
has inertial motion balanced by a gravitational attraction coming from the center of the sun.

It was a stunning insight -- one that eventually led to the universal law of gravitation. According to this law, any two
objects in the universe attract each other with a force that depends on two things: the masses of the interacting objects
and the distance between them. More massive objects have bigger gravitational attractions. Distance diminishes this
attraction. Newton expressed this mathematically in this equation:
F = G(m1m2/r2)
where F is the force of gravity between masses m1 and m2, G is a universal constant and r is the distance between the
centers of both masses.
 Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics
Over the years, scientists in just about every discipline have tested Newton's laws of motion and found them to be
amazingly predictive and reliable. But there are two instances where Newtonian physics break down. The first involves
objects traveling at or near the speed of light. The second problem comes when Newton's laws are applied to very
small objects, such as atoms or subatomic particles that fall in the realm of quantum mechanics.

START
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a pivotal figure in the development of modern astronomy, both because of his
contributions directly to astronomy, and because of his work in physics and its relation to astronomy. He provided the
crucial observations that proved the Copernican hypothesis, and also laid the foundations for a correct understanding
of how objects moved on the surface of the earth (dynamics) and of gravity.

Newton, who was born the same year that Galileo died, would build on Galileo's ideas to demonstrate that the laws of
motion in the heavens and the laws of motion on the earth were one and the same. Thus, Galileo began and Newton
completed a synthesis of astronomy and physics in which the former was recognized as but a particular example of the
latter, and that would banish the notions of Aristotle almost completely from both.

One could, with considerable justification, view Galileo as the father both of modern astronomy and of modern physics.

The Telescope
Galileo did not invent the telescope (Dutch spectacle makers receive that credit), but he was the first to use the
telescope to study the heavens systematically. His little telescope was poorer than even a cheap modern amateur
telescope, but what he observed in the heavens rocked the very foundations of Aristotle's universe and the theological-
philosophical worldview that it supported. It is said that what Galileo saw was so disturbing for some officials of the
Church that they refused to even look through his telescope; they reasoned that the Devil was capable of making
anything appear in the telescope, so it was best not to look through it.
Sunspots
Galileo observed the Sun through his telescope and saw that the Sun had dark patches on it that we now call sunspots
(he eventually went blind, perhaps from damage suffered by looking at the Sun with his telescope). Furthermore, he
observed motion of the sunspots indicating that the Sun was rotating on an axis. These "blemishes" on the Sun were
contrary to the doctrine of an unchanging perfect substance in the heavens, and the rotation of the Sun made it less
strange that the Earth might rotate on an axis too, as required in the Copernican model. Both represented new facts
that were unknown to Aristotle and Ptolemy.
The Moons of Jupiter
Galileo observed 4 points of light that changed their positions with time around the planet Jupiter. He concluded that
these were objects in orbit around Jupiter. Indeed, they were the 4 brightest moons of Jupiter, which are now
commonly called the Galilean moons (Galileo himself called them the Medicea Siderea---the ``Medician Stars''). Here
is an animation based on actual observations of the motion of these moons around Jupiter.
These observations again showed that there were new things in the heavens that Aristotle and Ptolemy had known
nothing about. Furthermore, they demonstrated that a planet could have moons circling it that would not be left behind
as the planet moved around its orbit. One of the arguments against the Copernican system (and the ORIGINAL
heliocentric idea of Aristarchus) had been that if the moon were in orbit around the Earth and the Earth in orbit around
the Sun, the Earth would leave the Moon behind as it moved around its orbit.

The Phases of Venus

Galileo used his telescope to show that Venus went through a complete set of phases, just like the Moon. This
observation was among the most important in human history, for it provided the first conclusive observational proof that
was consistent with the Copernican system but not the Ptolemaic system.
 Newton’s Laws – Intro to Dynamics
The crucial point is the empirical fact that Venus is never very far from the Sun in our sky. Thus, as the following
diagrams indicate, in the Ptolemaic system Venus should always be in crescent phase as viewed from the Earth
because as it moves around its epicycle it can never be far from the direction of the sun (which lies beyond it), but in
the Copernican system Venus should exhibit a complete set of phases over time as viewed from the Earth because it
is illuminated from the center of its orbit.

Phases of Venus in the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems

It is important to note that this was the first empirical evidence (coming almost a century after Copernicus) that allowed
a definitive test of the two models. Until that point, both the Ptolemaic and Copernican models described the available
data. The primary attraction of the Copernican system was that it described the data in a simpler fashion, but here
finally was conclusive evidence that not only was the Ptolemaic universe more complicated, it also was incorrect.

Myriad Observations Showing Phenomena Unknown to Aristotle

In addition to the observations noted above, Galileo made many other observations that undermined the authority on
which the Ptolemaic universe was built. Some of these included
Showing that the planets were disks, not points of light, as seen through the telescope.
Showing that the great "cloud" called the Milky Way (which we now know to be the disk of our spiral galaxy) was
composed of enormous numbers of stars that had not been seen before.
Observing that the planet Saturn had "ears". We now know that Galileo was observing the rings of Saturn, but his
telescope was not good enough to show them as more than extensions on either side of the planet.
Showing that the Moon was not smooth, as had been assumed, but was covered by mountains and craters.
As each new wonder was observed, increasing doubt was cast on the prevailing notion that there was nothing new to
be observed in the heavens because they were made from a perfect, unchanging substance. It also raised the
credibility issue: could the authority of Aristotle and Ptolemy be trusted concerning the nature of the Universe if there
were so many things in the Universe about which they had been completely unaware?
Galileo and the Leaning Tower
Galileo made extensive contributions to our understanding of the laws governing the motion of objects. The famous
Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment may be apocryphal. It is likely that Galileo himself did not drop two objects of very
different weight from the tower to prove that (contrary to popular expectations) they would hit the ground at the same
time. However, it is certain that Galileo understood the principle involved, and probably did similar experiments. The
realization that, as we would say in modern terms, the acceleration due to gravity is independent of the weight of an
object was important to the formulation of a theory of gravitation by Newton. Here is an animation of experiments with
inclined planes that Galileo probably did to confirm these ideas.