PHYSICS NYA Fall 2011

Lecture 8: Newtons rst and second laws

Instructor: Jeremie Vinet Marianopolis College.

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Review: describing motion

Important points from last lecture: Motion can be described using position, velocity and acceleration Position: where an object is located with respect to some reference frame Velocity: the rate of change of position Acceleration: the rate of change of velocity

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Explaining motion
Describing the motion of objects is ne. But a true understanding of nature can only come if we can explain why objects move the way they do. (Ridiculously!) brief historical review: Greeks believed natural state of objects is rest Galileo (1564-1642) realised constant velocity and rest are equivalent Newton (1642-1727) gured out the relationship between forces and acceleration

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Reference frames
We saw in last lecture that an objects velocity depends on the reference frame we use. Question: You are sitting in the Metro, and see another Metro car next to yours. Your car starts to move, but after a few seconds you realise its actually the other Metro car thats moving with respect to the ramp. Whats going on here? Whether an object is at rest or moving at constant velocity depends on the arbitrary choice of reference frame. There is no way for you inside the Metro car to tell whether you or the other car is moving, until comparing the Metros motion to the ramp. What does this tell us about the Greek view that the natural state of objects is rest?
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Inertial frames
You might now be wondering if the same argument applies to acceleration... Question: does it? No! Think again of two Metro cars. If your Metro car or the other Metro car suddenly slams on the brakes, are you going to be wondering which one actually did slam on the brakes? No, since if your car stops, you are thrown forward. It is possible to tell in an absolute way which car accelerates! Acceleration is not relative. Inertial frame: An inertial frame is a reference frame in which an object that has no forces acting on it is not seen to be accelerating .
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Newtons rst law

Newtons rst law: When seen from an inertial reference frame, an object that has no force acting on it has constant velocity, meaning that it is not accelerating.

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Everyday experience...
Doesnt constant velocity require the application of a force??? Nothing ever keeps moving indenitely... In the real world, there is always friction... If we neglect friction, then objects will keep a constant velocity for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever...

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Forces
Forces are what causes a change in an objects velocity There are two types of forces Contact forces (require physical contact between objects)

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Forces
Forces are what causes a change in an objects velocity There are two types of forces Field forces (do not require physical contact between objects)

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Forces
Question: Are the following examples eld or contact forces? gravity, friction, two cars colliding, wrestlers punching each other, electric force, a bat hitting a baseball, magnetism, The Force?

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(Four fundamental forces)

As far as we know today, there are four fundamental forces in nature The gravitational force The electromagnetic force The weak nuclear force The strong nuclear force Note that all of these are eld forces! Question: Which of these four forces is the weakest? Gravity

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Forces are vectors

A force can be large or small A force can be applied in any direction Therefore a force has a magnitude and a direction Forces are vectors!
F
kgm s2

Question: What are the units of force? Newtons, N =

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Example
The Incredible Hulk, Superman and Chewbacca all want to show off how strong they are. They each pull on a rock, as shown below. If the magnitudes are |F1 | = 800N, |F2 | = 1200N and |F3 | = 600N, with angles of 150o , 30o and 270o respectively with the horizontal, what is the net force on the rock?

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Example
From the data,
F1 = (800 cos 150o + 800 sin 150o N i j) F2 = (1200 cos 30o + 1200 sin 30o N i j) F3 = 600 N j Ftot = F1 + F2 + F3 = 346 + 400 N i j

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Free body diagrams

The rst thing you must always do when applying Newtons laws is a FREE BODY DIAGRAM. Start with the full situation

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Free body diagrams

The rst thing you must always do when applying Newtons laws is a FREE BODY DIAGRAM. Get rid of irrelevant stuff

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Free body diagrams

The rst thing you must always do when applying Newtons laws is a FREE BODY DIAGRAM. Represent the object as a point

Do this for every object in the setup.

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Mass and inertia

Inertia: We call inertia the property that objects have to resist a change in their state of motion. Mass: Mass is the amount of matter an object is made up of. The more mass an object has, the more it resists a change in its state of motion. Mass therefore quanties inertia.

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Mass and inertia

Question: Why are seatbelts necessary?

When the car is rolling, you are moving forward with it. When the car brakes, it slows down, but your inertia means that you keep moving forward, until something acts on you to slow you down. So you are not actually thrown forward; you just keep moving forward while the car slows down.

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Newtons second law

Summarizing what we have seen so far Objects have constant velocity unless a force acts on them Objects resist a change in their velocity The bigger the mass, the bigger the resistance So the acceleration is proportional to the force, but inversely proportional to the mass.

F = ma

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Examples
Question:The gure shows overhead view of four situations in which two forces accelerate the same block across a frictionless oor. Rank the situations according to the magnitudes of a) the net force on the block b) the acceleration of the block

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Examples
Question: The gure here shows two horizontal forces acting on a puck on a frictionless ice rink. If a third horizontal force F3 also acts on the block, what are the magnitude and direction of F3 when the block is a) stationary? b) moving to the left with a constant speed of 5 m/s?

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Examples
A hockey puck has a mass of 224 g. It is travelling with a velocity vi = (10 + 8 m/s. A player hits it with his stick, and i j) after .5 s, its velocity is vf = (3 m/s. What force did the i) stick apply on the puck? What are its magnitude and direction?

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Examples
vf vi a = t 3 (10 + 8 i i j) = 0.5 = (26 16 m/s2 i j) F = ma = 0.224a = (5.824 3.584 N i j) |F | = (5.824)2 + (3.584)2 = 6.84 N 3.584 = arctan = 31.6o 5.824

and since both components are negative, this must be in the third quadrant, so it is actually 31.6o south of west.

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What to read for next lecture

6.1, 6.2, 6.3 7.1, 7.2, 7.3

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