Newtons Theory: Laws of Motion

Sir Issac Newton, was an English physicist and mathematician who is widely regarded as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. His first discovery was Laws of MOTION.

Lets get started with it.

First Law: Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

Explanation : There are two parts to this statement - one that predicts the behavior of stationary objects and the other that predicts the behavior of moving objects. The two parts are summarized in the following diagram.

Figure URL: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/u2l1a1.gif

Suppose that you filled a baking dish to the rim with water and walked around an oval track making an attempt to complete a lap in the least amount of time. The water would have a tendency to spill from the container during specific locations on the track. In general the water spilled when:

The container was at rest and you attempted to move it The container was in motion and you attempted to stop it The container was moving in one direction and you attempted to change its direction.

The water spills whenever the state of motion of the container is changed. The water resisted this change in its own state of motion. The water tended to "keep on doing what it was doing." The container was moved from rest to a high speed at the starting line; the water remained at rest and spilled onto the table. The container was stopped near the finish line; the water kept moving and spilled over container's leading edge. The container was forced to move in a different direction to make it around a curve; the water kept moving in the same direction and spilled over its edge. The behavior of the water during the lap around the track can be explained by Newton's first law of motion.

Everyday Applications of Newton's First Law There are many applications of Newton's first law of motion. Consider some of your experiences in an automobile. Have you ever observed the behavior of coffee in a coffee cup filled to the rim while starting a car from rest or while bringing a car to rest from a state of motion? Coffee "keeps on doing what it is doing." When you accelerate a car from rest, the road provides an unbalanced force on the spinning wheels to push the car forward; yet the coffee (that was at rest) wants to stay at rest. While the car accelerates forward, the coffee remains in the same position; subsequently, the car accelerates out from under the coffee and the coffee spills in your lap. On the other hand, when braking from a state of motion the coffee continues forward with the same speed and in the same direction, ultimately hitting the windshield or the dash. Coffee in motion stays in motion.

Have you ever experienced inertia (resisting changes in your state of motion) in an automobile while it is braking to a stop? The force of the road on the locked wheels provides the unbalanced force to change the car's state of motion, yet there is no unbalanced force to change your own state of motion. Thus, you continue in motion, sliding along the seat in forward motion. A person in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction ... unless acted upon by the unbalanced force of a seat belt. Yes! Seat belts are used to provide safety for passengers whose motion is governed by Newton's laws. The seat belt provides the unbalanced force that brings you from a state of motion to a state of rest. Perhaps you could speculate what would occur when no seat belt is used.

Newtons 2nd Law: The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

This is the most powerful of Newton's three Laws, because it allows quantitative calculations of dynamics: how do velocities change when forces are applied. Notice the fundamental difference between Newton's 2nd Law and the dynamics of Aristotle: according to Newton, a force causes only a change in velocity (an acceleration); it does not maintain the velocity as Aristotle held.

This is sometimes summarized by saying that under Newton, F = ma, but under Aristotle F = mv, where v is the velocity. Thus, according to Aristotle there is only a velocity if there is a force, but according to Newton an object with a certain velocity maintains that velocity unless a force acts on it to cause an acceleration (that is, a change in the velocity). As we have noted earlier in conjunction with the discussion of Galileo, Aristotle's view seems to be more in accord with common sense, but that is because of a failure to appreciate the role played by frictional forces. Once account is taken of all forces acting in a given situation it is the dynamics of Galileo and Newton, not of Aristotle, that are found to be in accord with the observations.

Newtons 3rd Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Every Action that acts has a equal reaction, suppose if apply 50 N on an object, The object will also push me be 50 N.

Try out one thing, i.e., throw a ball towards the wall. What happened?? Speak about it!


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