Physics 100 Worksheet #2

Chapter 4 & 5: Forces and Newton’s Laws

Name:_____________________________ Student No. : ____________________ Section: ________

Instructions:
1. Bring this worksheet with you to class until completed. Keep it to help you study for exams..
2. Form small groups of 2 to 4 students. Discuss all answers with your group. Ask your TA or
lecturer for hints if required. Double-check your answers with a TA when done.
____________________________________________________________________________________

With kinematics we described how objects move, but not what sets them in motion.
The connection is Newton’s second law, which links forces and accelerations they cause.
Force is a vector so we always have to worry about its direction.

Q4.1 Consider a car during a crash test. The car is moving to the left as shown in the image.

What is the direction of …

(i) the car’s velocity?

(ii) the car’s acceleration?

(iii) the net force exerted on the car?

When discussing the last part with your group, you may have wondered about the role of friction or the
force due to the motor. Newton’s second law clarifies the situation: due to 𝐹⃗𝑛𝑒𝑡 = 𝑚 𝑎⃗, we know that
the combined effect of all forces leads to a change in motion, i.e. acceleration.

Let’s explore further the concept of a net force before moving on.
Q4.2 Look at the three situations below with the three skaters. Emily is initially at rest and then
gets a simultaneous push from each of her friends. Jen pushes her with 15 N and Anna pushes her
with 10 N.

Jen

Anna

1 2 3

a) In which situation does Emily’s acceleration have the largest magnitude? Why?

b) In which situation is Emily starting to move exactly to the right? Why?

When analyzing the situation you probably have intuitively chosen Emily as ‘the system under
consideration’ and treated Jen’s and Anna’s pushes as external forces on her. You also took the
direction of the forces into account when thinking about the net effect of these forces on Emily, i.e.
Emily’s acceleration.

Let’s have a look at situation 2 again and assume that Jen and Anna push with the same force from
opposite sides: The outcome is clear, Emily may get bruises, but she would not start to move.

If F1 = F2, the two forces would cancel each

other and the net force is zero. Emily would
remain at rest.

Only the net force (i.e. sum of all the forces) is

important in Newton’s 2nd Law, not any one of
the particular forces acting on the object.
Newton’s First Law of Motion
A body at rest remains at rest, or, if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on
by a net external (i.e. “unbalanced”) force.

Looking at situations with constant velocity, we need at least two opposing forces in real-world
situations because friction and air resistance are present in most situations.

Q4.3 When riding your bike on a flat road, you will eventually slow to a stop if you don’t pedal (if
you don’t apply any forward force). Newton’s First Law would suggest that you should remain at a
constant velocity since there are no forces. What is happening here? Is Newton’s First Law wrong?
Provide your explanation below and support it with a free-body diagram.

For the most part, we can view Newton’s first law as a special case of his second law 𝐹⃗𝑛𝑒𝑡 = 𝑚 𝑎⃗ when
the acceleration is zero. The reason why objects tend to stay in motion when they are already moving is
because they have inertia (expressed by their mass) that can be viewed as ‘resistance to change in
motion’.

(When we later talk about energy, we will get a different view: moving objects have kinetic energy that
they keep unless an external force does work on them. This is known as the work-energy principle.)
Q4.4 Let’s concentrate on Newton’s second law and take a systematic look at free-body diagrams.

a) Draw a free-body diagram for the sofa being pushed on by a child, but the sofa does not move.

b) Draw a free-body diagram for the grocery cart being pushed at constant speed.

c) Draw a free-body diagram for a grocery cart accelerating while being pushed.

d) Draw a free-body diagram for a grocery cart slowing down moving to the right after an initial push.
e) [Challenging] Draw a free-body diagram for a woman in an elevator moving down and slowing down.

f) [Challenging] Draw a free-body diagram for you riding inside a bus that is moving at constant velocity.
(Hint: Think about Newton’s 1st law in the horizontal direction.)

g) Free-body diagram Jeopardy™

Shown is a free-body diagram for an object.

Describe and sketch a physical situation described by
the free-body diagram. State your assumptions.
Look at cases (c) and (d) again and compare their free-body diagrams. The pushing force in case (d) is
missing. This illustrates an important idea underlying all free-body diagrams:
At any instant of time, an object responds only to the forces it feels at that instant.

Newton’s second law is a vector equation.

Nevertheless, we can still work in one dimension in many situations.
In some cases, the forces are along the same line (a) and in other cases, the forces in one direction do
not lead to a change in motion (vertical direction in case (b)).

a) b)

Let’s concentrate on the previous two cases for now and find out how to do quantitative calculations.
The steps are:
1) Draw a free-body diagram (already done for you).
2) Define an appropriate coordinate system (see below).
3) Write Newton’s 2nd law in x- and y-components.
4) Solve for the quantity stated in the problem question.

Q4.5a Write down Newton’s 2nd law 𝑭⃗⃗𝒏𝒆𝒕 = 𝒎 𝒂⃗⃗ in vector form and in the x- and y- directions
separately for the two cases above. The directions are defined with respect to the coordinate system
below.
Case (a)

y

x
Case (b)
The following two questions illustrate how Newton’s 2nd law and free-body diagrams are used in typical
problem questions.

Q4.5b Determine the tension force on a 1.0-kg mass that is held motionless by a rope in mid-air.

Q4.5c Determine the friction force if the child is pushed with a force of 30 N and child and cart are
accelerating at 0.75 m/s2. Assume that the child’s mass is 25 kg and the cart’s mass is 8.0 kg.
Let’s practice with a one-dimensional problem that is not intuitive.

Q4.6 A 50 kg woman is standing on a bathroom weight scale inside an elevator. Draw a free body
diagram and determine the force the scale exerts on the woman in the following cases.
a) The elevator is moving up at constant velocity

b) The elevator is moving down and slowing down at a rate of 1.5 m/s2.

c) Describe how the elevator must be moving such that the bathroom weight scale reads 735 N. Describe what
the woman would experience.
Problems in the real world are complicated Five-Step Problem-Solving Strategy
because there is usually a fairly complex situation
to analyze and we have to decide what 1. Interpret (parse) and visualize the problem
information will be helpful to solve a problem and 2. Identify the relevant physics concepts
answer a question. Sometimes information is 3. Create a physics model
missing and we have to make assumptions. In a) Define physics assumptions and
Physics 100 we will practice solving such problems. relationships
Having a problem-solving strategy is helpful. b) Make a diagram and summarize
relevant information
4. Solve the problem
5. Check and interpret your answer (Error
Checking / Sense-making)

Q4.7 Context-Rich Problem: In Traffic Court

You are selected as a juror and you have to decide on a traffic case.

A woman in a 1200-kg Toyota automobile was driving on West Broadway at night. She claims that a
cyclist suddenly crossed the road in front of her and so she slammed on the brakes. Unfortunately, she
lost control of the vehicle and skidded into a concrete wall. There were no witnesses and the cyclist
apparently took off from the scene.

The police report says that the front of her vehicle was
impacted by 0.35 m and that the skid marks were 6.3 m long.
The insurance company claims that the woman was driving
recklessly with too much speed and refuses to pay.

The expert witness explains that the friction force is

approximately 9500 N when the Toyota is skidding. Upon impact, the force goes up to 500,000 N,
which is known from crash test measurements.
You decide to use your Physics 100 knowledge to calculate her initial speed.

What will your verdict be? Was she driving recklessly?

Look at the problem-solving strategy. For this problem you should:

1. First parse the word problem, translating into math the description of the situation.
2. Draw a useful diagram depicting the situation.
3. Draw a free-body diagram showing the relevant forces.
4. Think about: What changes the motion of the vehicle? At what time?
5. List your assumptions clearly.
6. Calculate the initial speed and comment on your result. Is it reasonable? Does it make sense?
Write your solution here and on the next page.
Continue your solution here.
Newton’s 3rd Law:
Here are two slightly different formulations of the third law:

1. Whenever one object exerts a force on a second object, the second object exerts an equal and
opposite force back on the first.
2. Whenever one body exerts a force on a second body, the first body experiences a force that is
equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to the force that it exerts.

Physicist Paul Hewitt formulates the second version as “You cannot touch without being touched.”
For example:

or with a bit more force:

Newton’s third law applies whenever two objects interact with other.
This is also expressed in the notation in the image below. The two objects (feet and wall) interact via a
pair of ‘normal forces’, i.e. the wall exert a normal force on the feet of the woman and her feet exert a
normal force on the wall.

Buoyant
force

One of the difficulties with Newton’s 3rd law is that often cause and effect are confused.
The next example illustrates this source of confusion.
Q4.8 A car runs into a large truck that
has stopped at a traffic light. Select the
explanation you like the best:

1. The force that the truck exerts on the car is larger than the force the car exerts on the truck
because the car gets much more damaged than the truck.
2. The car exerts a larger force on the truck because it has some speed when they collide while the
truck has no speed.
3. The larger damage of the car is evidence that it exerted a larger force than the truck.
4. Both exert the same force on each other regardless of speed or damage.
5. The truck exerts a larger force on the car than the car exerts on the truck because the truck moves
very little during the collision while the car bounce back significantly.

Which of the five explanations is compatible with Newton’s third law? Explain why.

We will come back to applications of Newton’s third law after we have discussed the concepts of
normal force and tension which often arise in problems employing the third law.

Normal force
As the textbook explains you can think of it as a force
that is exerted by a surface supporting an object. You
can think of it as a spring force in which a spring
compresses as much as it needs to support the object.
This is how bathroom scales work. The compression
distance is proportional to a person’s weight. The
force is exerted in a direction perpendicular (‘normal’)
to the surface.
Q4.9 The free-body diagrams are drawn for the bag of dog food. When the dog food is placed on the table,
the surface is deformed. Draw free-body diagrams for the dog food and the table after the food is set down.
Which force causes the deformation of the table?

Perhaps you have answered the weight of the dog food to the question above, but the weight is actually
the gravitational force that Earth exerts on the dog food whether it is in contact with the table or not.
The correct answer is that the bottom surface of the dog food exerts a normal force on the surface of
the table.
For interacting objects, the interacting forces must be
A. Equal in magnitude
B. Opposite in direction
C. Of the same kind (e.g. contact forces, long-range forces)
D. The force pair cannot act on the same object
In this case and in the case of the collision, the two interacting forces are a pair of elastic normal forces.

The fact that weight and normal force are not directly interacting in a Newton’s third law pair is much
clearer when the supporting surface is not horizontal:
The diagram below shows a skier gliding down a hill. The corresponding free-body diagram is shown.
The dashed arrows represent the component of the weight parallel to the slope of the hill and
perpendicular to the hill.
Q4.10 Look at the requirements on the previous page and explain why weight and normal force are not an
interaction pair.

Tension in ropes, wires, etc

Newton’s laws are essential to understand tension in ropes, wires, strings, etc. As the textbook
mentions, you can think of tension as an elastic force.

Let’s briefly consider an elastic model of rope, which will help us

understand tension. You can model the rope as a long spring or
a slinky. Assume that a force is exerted on one end while the
other end is fixed:

Look at how the spacing between each turn is the same. To be

in equilibrium, there are two equal spring forces acting in
opposite directions at each point of the stretched spring (at the
dot, for example). At the bottom end, there is only the spring
force up and the force of gravity down. At the top end, the
spring pulls down. So the ceiling must exert a “holding force” up
on the spring. In reality this normal force is also a spring-like
force because all materials are somewhat elastic.
Q4.11 In which situation is the tension in the rope higher? Why? In each case the person pulls
with a force of 100 N.

Q4.12 Now look at the tightrope walker.

Since he is in static equilibrium the net force on him must be __________________________
(up/down/left/right/zero).

In the x-direction TLx must be _____________________________(equal to/greater than/smaller than) TRx.

In the y-direction, the equation should be (use TLy, TRy ,w):

Explain:
Q4.13 In a classroom demo, three weights are connected by a string of negligible mass, over two
pulleys as shown. The 2-kg-weight is initially held at rest and then released.

What happens when the 2-kg weight is released? Explain your answer. You can use the space below to
show work supporting your choice.
We will now take a closer look at two forces we have mentioned before: friction and drag (air
resistance), and finish the discussion with a challenging problem that involves friction, drag and
Newton’s laws.

Friction
The textbook does a good job at explaining why friction occurs. Here we will look at the things that are
difficult with friction:
1. Distinguishing ‘static’ and ‘kinetic’ friction. We often encounter them in the same situation.
2. Friction depends on the normal force, not the weight of an object.

Keep this in mind when you discuss the examples with your colleagues or the TAs.

Q4.14 You are trying to move a heavy file cabinet. You increase your pushing force until the
cabinet finally starts to move.
Describe the motion of the cabinet, if you keep pushing with the force that was required to set the cabinet in
motion. Explain your answer.

This graph shows the friction force as a function of

the applied force. Initially the object is at rest. If a
force is applied to the object, static friction keeps it
at rest and is equal to the applied force. If the
applied force exceeds the maximum static friction
force between a surface and an object, the object
starts to move. At this point the friction becomes
kinetic and remains at the same constant value for
all applied forces as long as the object moves.
Notice that kinetic friction is usually lower than the
maximum static friction.
Q4.15 Your parents’ place has a nice smooth hardwood floor and your little brother loves to slide on it just
wearing socks. You estimate that his maximum sliding distance is 2.0 m and you are wondering what his initial
speed is. You know that his mass is 35 kg and you look up the coefficient of friction for wool on hardwood and
find s = 0.15 and k = 0.10.
For the example on the next page, please refer to this figure.

Q4.16 Imagine now that the slope of the hill gets steeper. What do you expect?

a) The magnitude of the acceleration of the skier ___________________(increases/decreases/stays the

same).

b) The force the skier exerts on the slope _______________________(increases/decreases/stays the same).

c) The friction force on the skier ______________________________(increases/decreases/stays the same).

The example above is probably the only case in Physics 100 in which it is not useful to consider the
problem in x- and y-components. Instead, parallel and perpendicular components to the surface of the
hill are chosen. A good reason for this choice is the requirement that the skier stays on the surface of
the hill.

Q4.17 How is this requirement expressed in an equation? (Hint: think about Newton’s 2nd law.)
Q4.18 You are going downhill skiing with your friends. The friction coefficients for waxed wood on snow
are s = 0.14 and k = 0.10.

A) Your friend Cory knows that you take physics and asks you what the minimum angle would be for you
to start gliding without any initial push-off.

B) Would this angle be the same for all of your friends who might have different mass? Why?

C) What would be your maximum speed at the bottom of a 500-m-long glide straight down this slope?

D) Comment on your result: is this a realistic speed? (It helps to transfer the result into km/h.)
Additional information: The PhET ramp simulation
This interactive simulation illustrates all the ideas we have explored above. We recommend it very
highly. Go to https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/ramp-forces-and-motion
The simulation is safe to download, but you may need to install Java before you can use it.

Looking at the result of the previous problem you might have realized that the speed is a bit high, but
not completely unrealistic. It turns out that we have neglected air resistance or air drag, which is a force
that depends on speed and can get quite large at high speeds. As we will see below it will limit the
maximum speed you can get at any slope. Even the speed of skydivers is limited before (and definitely
after) opening their parachute.

Air Drag (Note: We will not consider water drag or Stokes’ law.)
Air drag occurs because a moving object collides with the air molecules. You can also picture the object
(a car, for example) pushing the air out of the way. The direction of air drag is opposite to the velocity
of the object.
The magnitude of the force depends on size and shape of the object and (quadratically) on the speed:
1
FD   air C A v 2
2
• A: cross sectional area (front surface). The textbook calls it “area facing
the fluid”.
• Density of dry air: air = 1.21 kg/m3 (20o C); 1.29 kg/m3 (0o C)
• Drag coefficient contains aerodynamics of shape. Typically, C ~ 0.5.
• (Formula applies for most objects if not too small, too slow or too fast.)

Q4.19 Your textbook claims that a mouse would not get hurt if it fell off the roof of a large
skyscraper. Is that true? (Hint: Calculate its maximum falling speed.)
Remember that its maximum speed occurs when it is no longer accelerating. As physicists, we tend to
simplify things, so we will model our mouse as a small sphere of radius 5.0 cm and mass 17 g. The drag
coefficient for spheres is C = 0.45, but we will double it because the mouse is not smooth but furry.
We will conclude the chapter with a challenge question that involves Newton’s laws and rolling
resistance. As preparation we will consider a conceptual (somewhat artificial) example.

Q4.20 Assume that you are pushing two blocks on ice. If your pushing force is 6.0 N, what will be the force
that block A exerts on block B? Assume that friction is negligible in this case.
a) Draw a free body diagram for each of the two blocks and use Newton’s third law notation when you
label the forces (e.g. FHand on A instead of Fpush)

b) Use Newton’s second and third laws to find an expression for the acceleration. Then solve for F A on B.

c) If you push from the other side (hand pushes on Block B) what will be the force that B exerts on A?
Rolling Friction
Wheels are a great way to reduce friction, but even a tire with the correct pressure has a small amount
of rolling resistance. Rolling resistance opposes motion, similar to kinetic friction. Conceptually, rolling
resistance occurs because a wheel flattens a bit at the bottom so it is not perfectly round. We will
discuss problems with rolling resistance later. As an estimate, the rolling resistance a car experiences is
roughly 1.2% of its weight, so f = 0.012 m g. For a bicycle this drops to 0.004 m g due to the higher
pressure in a bicycle tire. We will give you these numbers again in problem questions.

Problem – Pulling a trailer

Your friend has a bicycle trailer that she no longer uses because
the mechanism for attaching the trailer to the bike is broken.
You are wondering whether you can still use it for grocery
shopping. You might be able to attach it with some duct tape,
but it has to be safe in traffic. You find on the internet that duct
tape has a tensile strength in the range of (150 – 300) N. You can
obviously use several layers of duct tape, but you need to know
what the maximum force between bike and trailer will be. You
are also wondering how much force will be required to
accelerate bike and trailer.

Your bike has a mass of 18 kg car and the trailer has a mass of 8.5 kg. You estimate that the maximum
load on the trailer will be 35 kg and that your acceleration might be up to 1.5 m/s2. From taking Physics
100, you know that both the bike and the trailer are subject to rolling resistance and that it amounts to
roughly 0.4% of the weight of each object. You are also wondering whether you should include air drag.
With the heavy trailer attached, you probably won’t exceed a maximum speed of 25 km/h.

Parse the question, then come up with a good physics model for the situation. Neglect air drag at first.
Then use an estimate for the maximum drag force and comment on whether it was justified to neglect
the drag force. (Hint: Use similar steps as the question above.)

Q4.21 Determine: (Note that you will have to make a few assumptions for missing information.)
a) the magnitude and direction of the maximum force exerted by the trailer on the bike.
b) the maximum horizontal force exerted by the bike on the road.
c) the maximum drag force on the bike and on the trailer. For the bike, C = 0.9 and for the trailer C = 0.5.
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