Question

  Provide practical examples of Newton s laws of motion as they relate to your sport. Include both linear and angular examples for each law.

Answer 1

The first law describes what happens when the forces acting on a body are balanced (no resultant force acts) – the body remains at rest or continues to move at constant velocity (constant speed in a straight line).

If a book is placed on a table, it stays at rest. This is an example of Newton’s first law. There are two forces on the book and they happen to balance owing to the elastic properties of the table. The table is slightly squashed by the book and it exerts an elastic force upwards equal to the weight of the book. You can show this by placing a thick piece of foam rubber on a table and placing a book on top of it. The foam rubber squashes.

The second law describes what happens when the forces acting on a body are unbalanced (a resultant force acts). The body changes its velocity, v, in the direction of the force, F, at a rate proportional to the force and inversely proportional to its mass, m. The rate of change of v is proportional to F /m. And rate of change of velocity is acceleration, a.

So if the table mentioned above were in an upwardly accelerated lift, an outside observer would see that the two forces acting on the book were unequal. The resultant force would be sufficient to give the book the same upward acceleration as the lift. Put some bathroom scales between the book and the table. If the book is accelerating downwards, its weight would be greater than the reaction force from the table. The book would, however, appear to be weightless.

Newton’s third law can be stated as ‘interactions involve pairs of forces’. Be careful in talking about third law pairs (often misleadingly called ‘action’ and ‘reaction’). Many students find this law the most difficult one to understand.

Returning to the book on a table, there are three bodies involved: the Earth, the book, and the table. In this example, the interaction pairs of forces are:

• the weight of the book and the pull of the book on the Earth (gravitational forces)
• the push of the book on the table and the push of the table on the book (contact forces)