Topic: Newton’s Laws of Motion

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Sub Topics:

1. The Concepts of Force and Mass

1.1 Contact Force

1.2 Non-contact force

2. Newton’s First Law of Motion

2.1 The First Law

2.2 Inertia and Mass

3. Newton’s Second Law of Motion

4. Newton’s Third Law of Motion

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Objectives:

1. Identify and state the Three Laws of Motion

2. Describe the relationship between:

a. Force vs Mass

c. Inertia vs Mass

d. Force vs Acceleration

3. Apply Newton’s Second Law of Motion to problems

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Key Concepts

Background

• Newton’s Law of Motion is three fundamental laws that laid down the
foundation of classical mechanics. It describes the relationship between a
body and the forces acting upon that body.

• The three Laws of Motion of Sir Isaac Newton was first mentioned in his book,
“Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”.
• Newton’s Laws of Motion:

First Law: Law of inertia states that a body at rest will remain at rest and
a body in motion will keep on moving unless acted upon by an unbalanced
force.

Second Law: Law of Acceleration states that the acceleration of an

object is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force and is inversely
proportional to its mass. The object will accelerate towards the direction of the
net force.

Third Law: Law of Interaction states that for every action there is an
equal and opposite reaction.

The Concepts of Force and Mass

Force

Force is a fundamental concept in understanding the Newton’s Law of

Motion. Force can either be a push or a pull. It gives the quantitative description
of the interaction between two objects or an object and its environment. Force
can be categorized as contact force and non-contact force or force resulting from
action-at-a distance.

Contact Force is a force that is involved between two objects in direct

contact. Examples are frictional force, tension force, normal force, air resistance,
applied force, spring force. On the other hand, Non-Contact Force or also
called as force resulting from action-at-a distance is a force exerted by two
objects at a distant or not in direct contact with each other. Examples are
gravitational force, electrical force and magnetic force.

Therefore, force exists when there is an interaction between two bodies or

a body with its environment.

Activity #1

The Force Awakens

Directions: Identify the forces acting upon the object. (You can identify as many
forces as you can.)
1. A physics book resting on a table.

BOOK
2. You standing on the ground.

3. Consider pushing a book on top of the table. What are the forces acting upon
the book as it slides from left to right across a table top?

Follow up questions:

1. In situation 1 and 2 what is/are the reason/s why the object remains stationary
or not moving?

2. In situation 3 what is/are the reason/s why the book is moving and what
causes it to stop?

3. In general, what causes an object to remain at rest and in motion?

Newton’s First Law

Law of inertia states that a body at rest will remain at rest and a body
in motion will keep on moving unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

The first law of motion explains that an object will keep doing what it was
doing unless there is unbalanced force acting upon that object. For example, a
book resting on a table will remain stationary unless there is force that will cause
it to move, like, pushing or sliding the book to the other side. Another, a sliding
book will eventually stops because of friction.

What is meant by unbalanced force?

If two forces are of equal in magnitude and in opposite direction, they

balanced each other. However, if the magnitude of their forces are not equal and
in opposite direction, then the forces are unbalanced and the motion of the object
will change.

Some Examples from Real Life

When a baseball is thrown it will continue to move upward until gravity act
upon the ball.

Two teams are playing tug of war. Both teams are exerting the same
force on the rope but in opposite direction. This results to balanced force
and therefore will cause no change in motion.

Newton’s First Law of Motion also states that all objects have a tendency
to resist change in their state of motion. This natural tendency of an object to
resist change in their motion is called inertia. This means that the more massive
an object is, the greater the inertia it has and the harder to change its state of
motion.

Examples:

A train is so massive therefore it has a great deal of inertia and it needs a

large force to change its motion. When it is moving, it takes a large force
to stop it from moving.

A bee flies into your windshield. Since the bee has smaller mass, it has
very little inertia and exerts a very small force on your car.

Newton’s Second Law

Law of Acceleration states that the acceleration of an object is

directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force and is inversely
proportional to its mass. The object will accelerate towards the direction of
the net force.

The Second Law of Motion explains that the acceleration of an object is

dependent on two variables such as the mass of the object and the magnitude of
the net force acting upon the object. The relationship of the acceleration of an
object to its mass and net force acting upon it can be expressed in an equation
form below:

𝐹𝑛𝑒𝑡
𝑎=
𝑚

The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting

on the object, is in direction of the net force and is inversely proportional to the
mass of the object.

Example Problem:

1) A carabao pulls a loaded sled with a constant force of 20 N. If the total

mass of the sled and its content is 40 kg, what is the sled’s acceleration?

2) When the net force that acts on volleyball is 10 N, the volleyball

accelerates at a rate of 50 𝑚⁄𝑠 2 . Determine the mass of the volleyball.

Newton’s Third Law

Law of Interaction states that for every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction.

The third law of motion means that in every interaction, there is a pair of
forces acting on the two interacting object. The magnitude of the force of the first
object is equal to the magnitude of the force on the second object and the
direction of the force is opposite towards each other. Force always comes in
pairs- equal and in opposite direction.

Example:

Imagine that you are standing on a skateboard and you push yourself
against the wall. What do you think will happen?

You will slide in the opposite direction because the wall exerts an equal
force on you but in opposite direction.
 Why does it hurts so much when you stub your toe? Since your toe exerts
a force on a rock, the rock will also exert an equal force back on your toe. The
harder you hit your toe on the rock, the more force the rock will exert back on
your toe and the more your toe hurts.

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Evaluation:

Directions: Read each item carefully. Write the letter of the correct answer.

1) If the forces that act on a cannonball and the recoiling cannon from which it is
fired are equal in magnitude, why do the cannonball and cannon have different
accelerations?
a. they have the same masses
b. they have different masses
c. cannot be determined
2) How are forces and acceleration related?

a. inversely proportional
b. directly proportional
3) How are mass and acceleration related?

a. inversely proportional
b. directly proportional

4) How are force and mass related?

a. inversely proportional
b. directly proportional

5) Three professional wrestlers are fighting over the same championship’s belt
with a mass of 8.0 kg. The net horizontal force that the three wrestlers applied to
the belt is 128 N. What are the magnitude and direction of the belt’s
acceleration? If the belt is initially at rest, how far will it move after 0.50 s?

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Answer Key:

Activity 1

1. Earth’s gravitational pull and normal force

2. Earth’s gravitational pull and normal force

3. Frictional force, gravitational force, normal force

Follow up Questions:

1. In situation 1 & 2 the object remains stationary because there is balanced

force exerted on the object- the gravitational force that pulls the object
downwards and the normal force that pushes the object upwards.

2. For situation 3, the object moves because of the force exerted while pushing
the book and it eventually stops because of friction.

3. In general, force causes an object to remain at rest and in motion.

Newton’s Second Law

Example 1

Given: F= 20N
m= 40kg
a=?
Solution:

F=ma

𝐹 20 𝑁
𝑎= = = 0.50 𝑚/𝑠 2
𝑚 40 𝑘𝑔

Example 2

Given:
F= 10 N a= 50 𝑚⁄𝑠 2

𝐹
𝑚=
𝑎

10 𝑁
𝑚=
50 𝑚⁄𝑠 2

m= 0.20 kg

Evaluation:

1. b

2. b

3. a

4. b

5. Given:

m= 8.0 kg
F= 128 N

F=ma

𝐹 128 𝑁
𝑎= = = 16 𝑚/𝑠 2
𝑚 8.0 𝑘𝑔
 1 2
𝑥 = 𝑣𝑖 𝑡 + 𝑎𝑡
2

𝑚 1
𝑥 = (0 )(0.50 𝑠) + (16 𝑚/𝑠 2 )(0.50 𝑠)2
𝑠2 2

1
𝑥= (16 𝑚/𝑠 2 )(0.25 𝑠 2 )
2

1
𝑥= (4 𝑚)
2

𝑥 = 2.0 𝑚
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References

Hewitt, P. (2015). Conceptual Physics (12th ed.). Harlow, England: Pearson

Education Limited.

Young, H. & Freedman, R. (2004). University Physics: With Modern

Physics (11 th ed.). Jurong, Singapore: Pearson Education, Inc.

Cutnell, J. & Johnson, K. (2012). Physics (9th ed.). Rosewood Drive,

Danvers: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.