IGCSE

Unit 1 Force & Motion

Content Booklet

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Unit 1 Force and Motion

ATL skills

 Communication
o I. Communication skills
 Exchanging thoughts, messages and information effectively
through interaction
 Give and receive meaningful feedback
 Use appropriate forms of writing for different purposes and
audiences
 Interpret and use effectively modes of non-verbal
communication
 Participate in, and contribute to, digital social media networks
 Reading, writing and using language to gather and communicate
information
 Make inferences and draw conclusions
 Understand and use mathematical notation
 Take effective notes in class

 Thinking
o VIII. Critical thinking skills
 Analysing and evaluating issues and ideas
 Interpret data
 Evaluate evidence and arguments
 Draw reasonable conclusions and generalizations
 Formulate factual, topical, conceptual and debatable questions
 Propose and evaluate a variety of solutions
 Use models and simulations to explore complex systems and
issues
o IX. Creative thinking skills
 Generating novel ideas and considering new perspectives
 Use brainstorming and visual diagrams to generate new ideas
and inquiries

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INDEX

LEARNING TARGETS PAGES

Speed, velocity and acceleration 5-7

Motion and Motion Graphs 8-13

Newton’s Laws of motion 16-18

Free Fall 19

Momentum 21

Conservation of Momentum 21-22

Introduction

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Movement has been central to human progress over the centuries. We have crossed oceans to
reach new continents, and navigated across land and sea to find food and resources, or just to
explore the unknown. Human migration and invading armies have caused the movement not
just of people, but also of language, culture and technology. As a result they have shaped the
world around us. Movement also requires navigation so that we do not get lost. In this chapter
we will look at how we measure and describe motion, and how humans and other animals use
magnetic fields to keep track of where we are. Because movement and navigation are linked,
the global context of this unit is orientation in space and time. Movement is the change from
one state of being to another. For a moving object, it is the location that might change or its
orientation if the object is rotating. Such a change in position will also occur over a period of
time. Therefore, the key concept for this unit is change.

Speed, velocity and acceleration

How do we quantify movement?

If a car travels 300 km from Liverpool to London in five hours, its average speed is 300 km/5
h = 60 km/h. The speedometer would certainly not read 60 km/h for the whole journey but

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might vary considerably from this value. That is why we state the average speed. If a car
could travel at a constant speed of 60 km/h for five hours, the distance covered would still be
300 km. It is always true that

Velocity
Speed is the distance travelled in unit time; velocity is the distance travelled in unit time in a
stated direction. If two trains travel due north at 20 m/s, they have the same speed of 20 m/s
and the same velocity of 20 m/s due north. If one travels north and the other south, their
speeds are the same but not their velocities since their directions of motion are different.
Speed is a scalar quantity and velocity a vector quantity.

How do we change speed?

Not all objects travel at a constant speed or velocity. Objects can get faster or slower and/or
change direction. As velocity is a vector quantity, direction is important, so if an object
maintains a constant speed but changes direction, such as the runner going around a 400m
track, its velocity is changing. Whenever there is a change in velocity, there is acceleration
(or deceleration if the velocity is getting slower).

Acceleration is calculated using the equation:

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Acceleration is the change of velocity in unit time,

Acceleration is also a vector and both its magnitude and direction should be stated. However,
at present we will consider only motion in a straight line and so the magnitude of the velocity
will equal the speed, and the magnitude of the acceleration will equal the change of speed in
unit time. The speeds of a car accelerating on a straight road are shown below.

The speed increases by 5 m/s every second and the acceleration of 5 m/s2 is said to be
uniform. An acceleration is positive if the velocity increases and negative if it decreases. A
negative acceleration is also called a deceleration or retardation.

Motion and Motion Graphs

Distance–time graphs
A body travelling with uniform velocity covers equal distances in equal times. Its distance–
time graph is a straight line, like OL in Figure 3.3 for a velocity of 10 m/s. The slope of the
graph is LM/OM = 40 m/4 s = 10 m/s, which is the value of the velocity. The following
statement is true in general:

Fig:-Uniform velocity

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Fig:- Non-uniform velocity

Position-Time Graph
Let's begin by graphing some examples of motion at a constant velocity. Three different
curves are included on the graph to the right, each with an initial position of zero. Note first
that the graphs are all straight. (Any kind of line drawn on a graph is called a curve. Even a
straight line is called a curve in mathematics.) This is to be expected given the linear nature
of the appropriate equation. (The independent variable of a linear function is raised no higher
than the first power.)

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Velocity–time graphs
If the velocity of a body is plotted against the time, the graph obtained is a velocity–time
graph. It provides a way of solving motion problems. Tape charts are crude velocity–time
graphs that show the velocity changing in jumps rather than smoothly, as occurs in practice.
A motion sensor gives a smoother plot.

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Fig:- Uniform velocity

In the above figure, AB is the velocity–time graph for a body moving with a uniform velocity
of 20 m/s. Since distance = average velocity × time, after 5 s it will have moved 20 m/s × 5 s
= 100 m. This is the shaded area under the graph, i.e. rectangle OABC. In the below figure,
PQ is the velocity–time graph for a body moving with uniform acceleration. At the start of
the timing the velocity is 20 m/s but it increases steadily to 40 m/s after 5 s. If the distance
covered equals the area under PQ, i.e. the shaded area OPQS, then

Fig:- Uniform acceleration

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Fig:- Non-uniform acceleration

Notes

1 When calculating the area from the graph, the unit of time must be the same on both axes.

2 This rule for finding distances travelled is true even if the acceleration is not uniform. In the
above Figure, the distance travelled equals the shaded area OXY.

The slope or gradient of a velocity–time graph represents the acceleration of the body.

Velocity-Time Graph
The most important thing to remember about velocity-time graphs is that they are velocity-
time graphs, not position-time graphs. There is something about a line graph that makes
people think they're looking at the path of an object. A common beginner's mistake is to look
at the graph to the right and think that the the v = 9.0 m/s line corresponds to an object that is
"higher" than the other objects. Don't think like this. It's wrong.

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Don't look at these graphs and think of them as a picture of a moving object. Instead, think of
them as the record of an object's velocity. In these graphs, higher means faster not farther.
The v = 9.0 m/s line is higher because that object is moving faster than the others.

These particular graphs are all horizontal. The initial velocity of each object is the same as
the final velocity is the same as every velocity in between. The velocity of each of these
objects is constant during this ten second interval.

In comparison, when the curve on a velocity-time graph is straight but not horizontal, the
velocity is changing. The three curves to the right each have a different slope. The graph with
the steepest slope experiences the greatest rate of change in velocity. That object has the
greatest acceleration. Compare the velocity-time equation for constant acceleration with the
classic slope-intercept equation taught in introductory algebra.

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Forces

What types of force are there?

A force can be described as a push or a pull on an object. There are many ways in which an
object could receive a force. Here are some common forces.

● Weight (gravitational force): The Earth’s gravitational field pulls all objects downwards.
This force is called weight.

● Reaction: Although objects are pulled toward the centre of the Earth, they rest on the
ground or some other surface. The Earth’s surface exerts a force which counteracts an
object’s weight and keeps it from falling further downwards. This force, due to the contact
between two objects, is called a normal reaction. It stops us falling through floors and enables
us to sit on chairs without falling through them.

● Friction: When two objects slide over each other, friction acts against their motion. This
force can be reduced by making the two objects smoother or by lubricating the contact with a
substance such as oil, but it cannot be eliminated without removing all contact between the
objects.

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● Air resistance: Another type of friction is air resistance. This occurs when an object moves
through air. The resulting “wind” acts against the motion of the object.

● Electrostatic force: This force acts between two charges. It can be attractive or repulsive.

● Magnetic force: This is the force of attraction between two opposite magnetic poles or the
repulsion between two like magnetic poles.

● Tension and compression: Tension is a force that occurs when something like an elastic
band or a rope is stretched. The force of tension pulls objects. The opposite is compression
where an object exerts a force by being squashed, such as a spring.

● Upthrust: Objects which are submerged in water or floating on the surface are supported by
the buoyancy of the water. This force is called up thrust. It is also felt by objects in the air,
but is not normally noticeable unless the object has a low density such as a helium balloon.

● Lift: Wings on a plane generate an upwards force that help it to fly. This is called lift.

How do we measure forces?

It is common to measure weight using a balance. A balance gives a result in grams or
kilograms (units of mass), but it is really measuring the weight of the object which is a force.
The force F can be found using the formula: F = m g where m is the mass of the object and g
is the gravitational field strength (9.8 N kg –1 on Earth).

Another way of measuring an object’s weight is to use a spring balance. This consists of a
spring which stretches when the object is hung on it. The greater the weight of the object, the
more the spring stretches. A spring balance does not have to be used vertically to measure
weight; it could be used to measure other forces as well. The unit of force is a newton which
is abbreviated to N. As a result, a device which measures force is sometimes called a newton-
meter.

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Newton’s Laws of motion

Newton’s first law

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Friction and air resistance cause a car to come to rest when the engine is switched off. If these
forces were absent we believe that a body, once set in motion, would go on moving forever
with a constant speed in a straight line. That is, force is not needed to keep a body moving
with uniform velocity provided that no opposing forces act on it.

This idea was proposed by Galileo and is summed up in Newton’s first law of motion:

A body stays at rest, or if moving it continues to move with uniform velocity, unless an
external force makes it behave differently.

It seems that the question we should ask about a moving body is not ‘what keeps it moving’
but ‘what changes or stops its motion’. The smaller the external forces opposing a moving
body, the smaller is the force needed to keep it moving with uniform velocity. An ‘airboard’,
which is supported by a cushion of air figure, can skim across the ground with little frictional
opposition, so that relatively little power is needed to maintain motion.

Fig:-Friction is much reduced for an airboard.

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Mass and inertia

The larger the mass of a body, the greater is its inertia, i.e. the more difficult it is to move it
when at rest and to stop it when in motion. Because of this we consider that the mass of a
body measures its inertia.

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Newton’s second law

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Free Fall

Gravitational field

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Weight

Newton’s third law

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Momentum

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