FORCES

In this section we talk specifically about something we have been making reference to quite a bit in the last few weeks – forces. In the riverboat we had the boat being pushed by the force of the riverboat and in the projectile motion problem we had gravity pulling the hovercraft down towards the Earth.

We have been analyzing motion and in several of the motions we have analyzed we have had accelerations. For something to have an acceleration then there must be a net force being applied to it that causes that acceleration. Acceleration and force are intrinsically linked by Newton’s second law: Fnet=ma.

In the following video we talk about Newton’s 3 laws and how they help us to analyze a physical situation in which forces are occurring.