Starter: Write into your notebook

• What is a “force”?
• List all the forces you know.

• What is “inertia”?

• Is friction good or bad?

stationary

Moving away at
a constant rate

Moving closer at
a constant rate

Moving away at
an increasing
rate
 12 m

6 sec

20m/15 sec =
1.33 m/s

Moving away from the origin at a constant

speed of 1.33 m/s

200 m

11 sec

80 m
11 sec

80 m

15 sec

200m/25 sec = 8 m/s

0 m/s
Objectives.
• Describe a force as a push, pull, twist etc.. (measured in Newtons )
• Outline how a force can change the speed, direction or shape of an object.
• Describe the different types of forces
Define force
• Any influence that can cause a change in an object’s motion (causes acceleration).

A bat strikes the ball with a

force that causes the ball to
stop and then move in the
opposite direction.

• A push or pull that one object exerts on another

• Force has a size and direction (vector)
What is a Newton?
Forces are measured in Newtons.
• One newton is equal to the amount of force
needed to accelerate a 1 kg mass 1 m/sec2.

You have to apply a force of

about 3 N to lift a full can of
soda.
How Things Move
• You may have heard “inertia is a property of matter” from the opening credits to
Bill Nye the Science Guy. But what exactly is inertia?
• Inertia: An object’s tendency to keep moving or remain at rest, to maintain its
motion.
• This leads us to Newton’s* First Law: The Law of Inertia.
*Though this law is attributed to Sir Isaac Newton, it was actually Rene Descartes who invented this law.

An object that is subject to no external forces will

maintain its motion: it will remain stationary or
keep moving with the same constant velocity.
Newton’s First Law: The Law of Inertia
• Consider an object in space (far from the gravitational forces of other objects in
space).
• If the object was stationary to begin with, then it will remain stationary until an
external force acts upon it.
• Similarly, if the object was moving with a constant velocity then it will continue at
that constant velocity until an external force acts upon it.
• Inertia is the reason it is hard to stop instantaneously when showing off
Newton’s First Law: The Law of Inertia

Example:
Use Newton’s First Law to explain why it is important to
wear your seatbelt in a moving vehicle.
Newton’s First Law: The Law of Inertia

It is important to wear your seatbelt because in a collision the

car stops but you keep moving unless there is a force to stop
you.
Without a force to stop you
(the seatbelt), you keep
moving

Force stops the car

On the Shoulders of a Giant
• Newton/Descartes was working off Galileo’s thought experiments a generation
earlier.
• Consider this: what happens when you drop two pieces of paper, one is flat and
one is crumpled into a ball?
The masses are the same but they fall at different rates.
Motion: Galileo
• What happens when you drop two objects of roughly the same shape
but very different masses?
Even with different masses they both hit the ground at the same time.

Heavy Light
Galileo’s Law of Falling
• If air resistance is negligible, then any two objects that are dropped together
will fall together, regardless of their masses, shapes, or materials.
Galileo’s Law of Falling
• This means that any two objects – a duck, a velociraptor, a notebook, a piece of
chalk, even an individual atom – will fall together.

• All objects fall at the same rate.

Let’s do a small
experiment:
For each table, grab the following:
• mug/glass
• index card
• coins
Do NOT do anything yet until teacher gives you an
instruction.
Follow the instructions in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq1Whusk8No

Have all members of the group do it CORRECTLY. See who will be able to do more successes.
Discussion
• Are there forces acting on the coin when it wasn’t moving? Yes or None?

• What force/s acted on the coin when you flipped the index card?

• Why didn’t the coin follow the card?

 Balanced and Unbalanced Forces
Balanced Forces: No Acceleration

In a tug of war, each side exerts a

force on the rope. If the opposing
forces are equal, they are balanced
and the people do not move.

Unbalanced Forces: Acceleration If one of the forces is greater than

the other, the forces are unbalanced
and the people move in the direction
of the greater force.
 Balanced Forces
» Do not change motion (movement)
» Cancel each other
» Combine to produce a net force of zero

Unbalanced Forces
» Do not have the same strength (size) acting on the object
» Causes change in motion (movement). There will be acceleration
• Define contact and field forces.
• State examples of each

Contact forces: occur because of physical contact between objects.

Field Forces: Act at a distance through space.

CONTACT FORCES FIELD FORCES

Applied Gravitational
Tension Electrical
Normal Magnetic
Friction Nuclear
Air Resistance
Spring Force
Task: For each of the contact and field forces, define them and state their abbreviation.

Type Abbreviation Definition

Friction Force opposing motion (sliding, rolling, fluid friction)
Normal

Applied Fapp a force that is applied to an object by a person or another object

Gravity

Tension

Air resistance The force that acts in the opposite direction to an object moving through the air.
Spring Fspring

Electrical Felect The interaction of either attractive force or repulsive force between two charged bodies.

Magnetic

Nuclear The force which exists between the protons and the neutrons present in a nucleus to keep
them together
FRICTION FORCE
(Ffric)
•Friction force the force opposing motion (sliding, rolling, fluid friction)
-created
Friction whenever
caused two surfaces
by microscopic move orintry
roughness to move
surfaces across
and, each other. surfaces,
in ultra-smooth
by-always
molecular attraction
opposes the motion or attempted motion of one surface across another
surface.
Friction is also dependent on the force which presses the surfaces together.
NORMAL FORCE (Fnorm)Fn Fn
The normal force is the contact force F
that surfaces exert to prevent solid Ff
objects from passing through each
other. Fg r

• Always acts perpendicular to the surface

• Always equals the forces applied to the
surface (or surface will break!)
Fn
Called the ‘normal’ force
because it is always
normal (perpendicular)
to the surface.
Fg
APPLIED FORCE Fapp
• The applied force is the force that is applied to an object by a person or another
object
• Usually named after the object applying the force (generally Fapp)

FJason
Jason
GRAVITY Fgrav
• the force of gravity acts between all objects in the universe.
• attraction between ALL objects with mass (amount of matter in an object)
***you do not notice the attraction among most objects because gravity is quite weak. It
only feels strong on Earth because the planet is so massive.

• Gravity is affected by both mass and distance

TENSION FORCE

• the force that the end of the rope, string, or cable exerts on
whatever is attached to it.
-the direction of the force is along the rope.
-tension can only pull not push
-assumed to be the same in all parts of that rope
AIR RESISTANCE
air resistance describes the forces that are in opposition to the
relative motion of an object as it passes through the air.

Air resistance comes from cumulative interaction with air molecules.

The faster you move, the greater the air resistance.

Air resistance increases when area of object increase.

drag
SPRING FORCE: restoring force exerted by a “spring” when it is
stretched or compressed.
 Force due to the elasticity of a
material
 Depends on the elasticity of the
spring
 Direction is opposite the direction
to displacement.

Elasticity: the ability of an object or material to resume its normal shape

after being stretched or compressed; stretchiness.
Electrical: interaction of attractive or repulsive force between two charged
bodies

• An electric field is the physical field that surrounds electrically-charged

particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either
attracting or repelling them.
Magnetic: Attraction or repulsion that arises between electrically
charged particles because of their motion.

The magnetic force on a moving charge is

exerted in a direction at a right angle to the
plane formed by the direction of its velocity
and the direction of the surrounding
magnetic field.
Nuclear: a strong attractive force between nucleons in the atomic
nucleus that holds the nucleus together.

• AKA nuclear interactions or strong forces

• They bind protons and neutrons (“nucleons”)
into atomic nuclei.
• 10 millions times stronger than the chemical
binding that holds atoms together in molecules
• At short distances (less than 1.7 fm), the
attractive nuclear force is stronger than the
repulsive Coulomb force between protons; it
thus overcomes the repulsion of protons
within the nucleus.
 Types of Forces
Type Abbreviation Definition
Friction Ffric Force opposing motion (sliding, rolling, fluid friction)
Normal Fnorm the contact force exerted on an object preventing the object to fall; air
resistance
Applied Fapp a force that is applied to an object by a person or another object
Gravity Fgrav acts between all objects in the universe

Tension Ften The force transmitted through a rope, string or wire when pulled by forces acting from
opposite sides.
Air resistance Fair The force that acts in the opposite direction to an object moving through the air.
Spring Fspring A restoring force exerted by a spring when it is stretched or compressed.

Electrical Felect The interaction of either attractive force or repulsive force between two charged bodies.

Magnetic ***
Attraction or repulsion that arises between electrically charged particles because of their
motion.
Nuclear ***
The force which exists between the protons and the neutrons present in a nucleus to
keep them together
Objectives.

• Describe a force as a push, pull, twist etc..

• Recall that a force is measured in Newtons
• Outline how a force can change the speed, direction or shape of an object.
• Describe the different types of forces
 Plenary: Complete the table below.
Forces and Motion: Basics
Scenario Left Team Right Force to Force to Net
Team the Left the Right Force
A force is simply a push or pull on an object. In order to
overcome inertia and accelerate an object (change its speed
or direction), you must exert a force. When more than one 1 1 small nobody 50 N 0N 50 N to
force is acting on the same object, we combine all of the the left
forces into a single vector called the net force. Forces in the
same direction are added together. Forces in opposite 2 2 small 1
directions are subtracted. medium
3 1 small, 1 small,
Procedure: At phet.colorado.edu, run the Forces and 1 large 1
Motion: Basics simulation medium
phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/forces-and-motion-basics/
latest/forces-and-motion-basics_en.html 4 1 large 1 small,
1
b) Check the boxes in the top right corner labeled Sum of medium
Forces and Values.
c) Drag individuals from the bottom to the rope in order to fill 5 2 small, 1
in the blanks below. 1 medium
medium,

Each small person can pull with a force of ______ newtons. 1 large
Each medium-sized person can pull with a force of
______ newtons. Each large person can pull with a force of
______ newtons.
Plenary
Write down when the index cards and coins as well as the Phet simulator was
demonstrating balanced or unbalanced forces.
Write down which forces were involved in these demonstrations.

Extension = suggest how you could make these unbalanced forces balanced and
what forces would be required to help balance them.