Elementary Natural

Science and
Technology I
ENST611
Unit 1
Dr Benedict Khoboli
 LEARNING UNIT 1: Forces and motion
LEARNING OUTCOME:
Upon completion of this outcome students will be
expected to conceptualise and apply basic
LEARNING knowledge of forces and motion to explain
phenomena and to solve problems experienced in
UNIT 1: everyday life.

Forces and Assessment criteria:

motion Students will demonstrate achievement of this

learning outcome by being able to:
• Explain the concept “inertia”;
• Distinguish between different types of forces;
• Conceptualise force as a vector and apply the
equilibrium rule to solve problems relating to
forces and motion;
 Assessment criteria (cont.):
Students will demonstrate achievement of this
learning outcome by being able to:
LEARNING • Differentiate between speed and velocity;
UNIT 1: • Describe and calculate the speed, velocity and
acceleration of an object and describe the
Forces and relationship between these variables for 1D motion;
motion • Describe and apply Newton’s Laws of motion to
explain and predict phenomena in the real world;
• Describe and apply Newton’s Law of Universal
Gravitation to explain phenomenon regarding
gravity and gravitational acceleration.
Inertia Definition

• Inertia is the tendency of

an object to resist a change
in its state of motion.
 Law of Inertia
• Objects at rest will remain at rest and objects that are in motion will continue to move.
• A change of motion will occur only when a net force acts on an object.
• Wait! haven't we heard that somewhere before?
• Newton's first law of motion is also called the law of inertia.

A body at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, will remain

at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted
upon by an external unbalanced force.
Newton's first law of motion

• By Newton’s first law, the backpacks continue their state of motion,

maintaining their velocity.
• The backpacks slow down if a force is applied, such as friction with the floor.
 Inertia Equation
• As mentioned above, the inertia of an object is its tendency to
resist a change in motion.
• When an object's motion is changing, it is said to be accelerating.
• Acceleration is caused by a net force and this was summed up by
Newton in his second law, which can be stated as:
A net force acting on an object causes it to accelerate and its
acceleration is proportional to, and in the same direction as, the
net force.
• Newton's law can also be expressed as the equation

• NEWTON’S SECOND LAW OF MOTION

• Why do we have the arrows?
 Newton’s second law
• Newton’s second law relates the description of motion to the cause of motion,
force.
• It is one of the most fundamental relationships in physics.
• From Newton’s second law we can make a more precise definition of force as
an action capable of accelerating an object.
• where is the net force acting on the object measured in N, is the mass of the
object measured in kg and is its acceleration in .

• Notice that the force and the acceleration are vectors and both of these
vectors point in the same direction.
• Vector quantities have both a magnitude and a direction.
 Class activity
1. Estimate the net force needed to accelerate
a) a 1000 kg car at
b) A 200 gram apple at the same rate.
This is equal to 4.9

200 g = 0.2 kg
= (1000 kg)(4.9 ) = 4900 kg∙ = 4900 N

2. What average net force is required to bring a 1500 kg car to rest from
a speed of 100 kwithin a distance of 55 m?
 Class activity
2. What average net force is required to bring a 1500 kg car to rest from
a speed of 100 kwithin a distance of 55 m?
 Newton’s Third Law of Motion
• Newton’s second law of motion describes quantitatively
how forces affect motion.
• But where, we may ask, do forces come from?
Whenever one object • Observations suggest that a force exerted on any object
is always exerted by another object.
exerts a force on a second
object, the second object • A horse pulls a wagon, a person pushes a grocery cart, a
exerts an equal force in hammer pushes on a nail, a magnet attracts a paper
clip.
the opposite direction on
the first. • In each of these examples, a force is exerted on one
object, and that force is exerted by another object.
• For example, the force exerted on the nail is exerted by
Newton’s third law the hammer.
of motion • The hammer exerts a force on the nail, and the nail
exerts a force back on the hammer.
 CTM’s floor assistant has been assigned the task of moving a block of marble using a sled
as shown in the figure below.

He says to his boss, “When I

exert a forward force on the
sled, the sled exerts an equal
and opposite force backward.
So how can I ever start it
moving?
No matter how hard I pull, the
backward reaction force always
equals my forward force, so the
net force must be zero.
I’ll never be able to move this
load.” Is he correct?
 Different types of forces
 Force of gravity or gravitational force.
 The force exerted by the table is often called a
contact force, since it occurs when two objects are
in contact.
 When a contact force acts perpendicular to the
common surface of contact, it is referred to as the
normal force.
 Friction Force
 Example
A friend has given you a special gift, a box of mass 10.0 kg with
a mystery surprise inside. The box is resting on the smooth
(frictionless) horizontal surface of a table in Figure A.
a) Determine the weight of the box and the normal force
exerted on it by the table.

(b) Now your friend pushes down on the box

with a force of 40.0 N, as in Figure B. Again
determine the normal force exerted on the
box by the table.
 Example
A friend has given you a special gift, a box of
mass 10.0 kg with a mystery surprise inside.
The box is resting on the smooth
(frictionless) horizontal surface of a table in
Figure A.

(c) If your friend pulls upward on the box with

a force of 40.0 N (Figure C), what now is the
normal force exerted on the box by the table?
Activity 1

Calculate the sum

of the two forces
exerted on the boat
by workers A and B
in Figure shown
below.
 Activity 2
A friend is pulling a box of 10.0 kg
with a cord, as shown in the Figure
shown along the smooth surface of
the table. The magnitude of the force
exerted by the person is FP = 40.0 N,
and it is exerted at a 30.0° angle as
shown. Calculate
(a) the acceleration of the box, and
(b) the magnitude of the upward force exerted by the table on the
box. Assume that friction can be neglected.
 Problems Involving
Friction, Inclines

• Until now we have ignored friction, but it

must be taken into account in most
practical situations.
• Friction exists between two solid surfaces
because even the smoothest looking
surface is quite rough on a microscopic
scale
• We focus now on sliding friction, which is
usually called kinetic friction
 Coefficient of kinetic friction
• For given surfaces, experiment shows that the friction
force is approximately proportional to the normal force
between the two surfaces.
• The force that either object exerts on the other and is
perpendicular to their common surface of contact

• This relation is not a fundamental law;

• it is an experimental relation between the magnitude of
the friction force which acts parallel to the two surfaces,
and the magnitude of the normal force which acts
perpendicular to the surfaces.
• The term is called the coefficient of kinetic friction,
and its value depends on the nature of the two surfaces.
Coefficient of static friction
• What we have been discussing up to now is kinetic friction, when one
object slides over another.
• There is also static friction, which refers to a force parallel to the
two surfaces that can arise even when they are not sliding.
• At this point, you have exceeded the maximum force of static friction,
which is given by where is the coefficient of static friction.
• Because the force of static friction can vary from zero to this
maximum value, we write