Virtual Lab Manual

Newton’s First Law of Motion

Synopsis
The balance between pushing or pulling upon an object resulting from its interaction with
another object is key to understanding Newton’s first law of motion. In this simulation, you’ll
get the chance to make your debut in a virtual lab and experience activities that normally are
not possible in a real lab! Enjoy traveling back in time to meet Newton and help him gain his
memory back by doing some experiments with him on Earth and in Space too!

Rest and Uniform motion

No one better than Newton can guide you through his first law of motion. That is why Dr. One
wants to travel back in time with you to 1687 and meet in person one of the greatest
physicists of all times. Unfortunately he was hit by an apple and he forgot what he was
working on! Your first mission will be to help him remember what it means for a body to stay
at rest or in uniform motion. To help with that you will have to figure out what are the forces
that are acting on a hockey puck which is at rest on a table and a ball which is rolling in
uniform motion.

The Inertia of a body

Newton has noticed that he uses the term “Inertia” quite often in his book (Philosophiae
naturalis principia mathematica), but he can't remember what it means.
Your next mission will be to move a body from his state of rest by applying a force. You will
have at your disposal three cubes which have different masses. Will you be able to move all
of them?

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Friction
The previous experiment was set up on a frictionless surface. However, this is not what
we usually see in real life. Every object has indeed friction and Newton is curious to
check how the inertia of a body is going to be affected by that.
You will repeat the previous experiment on two different surfaces: asphalt and glue.

Balanced and Unbalanced Forces

Now it’s time to test the first law of motion by applying more than one force to an object
and see how this is going to affect its motion. With this experiment you will learn what it
means for two forces to be balanced or unbalanced. At your disposal you will have a
cube, a frictionless surface, and asphalt. You will need to apply two forces, one to move
the cube and the second one to stop it.

Let’s go to Space
Newton is wondering if his law of motion still applies in Space. Fortunately we are in a
virtual lab and we can teleport to Space with the click of a button! After wearing a space
suit you will be ready to explore space and detect which forces act on Newton himself
which is moving in uniform motion, far from Earth or any other gravitational source.
Will you succeed in the task? I bet so!

Learning Objectives
At the end of this simulation, you will be able to…

● Identify the forces acting on a body at rest and in uniform motion

● Explain the overall effect of balanced forces acting upon a body including observation
of speed, inertia, and gravity.

● Relate the impact of increasing or decreasing a previously balanced force to real-world

examples

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Theory
Force and net force

In theory books, the concept of force is expressed as a push or pull upon an object causing
an object's state of motion to change. However, this definition does not explain the concept
of force entirely.

We might more correctly say that a force is a push or a pull upon an object resulting from its
interaction with another object.

Whenever there is an interaction between two objects, there is a force upon each of the
objects. When the interaction ceases, the two objects no longer experience the force.

Forces are usually represented with arrows. The arrow shows: the size of the force (the
longer the arrow, the bigger the force) and the direction in which the force acts.

Figure 1 highlights another fundamental concept: the net force. The net force on an object is
the combined effect (the sum) of all the pushing and pulling forces actually acting on the
object. If the forces pushing or pulling on an object are not balanced (a net force acts) then
the object will move in the direction of the net force.

Figure 1: the forces pushing or pulling on the two shopping carts are not balanced. In fact the
cart is first experiencing a net force of 60 N + 30 N = 90 N to the right, and then a net force
of 30 N - 10 N = 20 N to the left. Notice that the carts will always move in the direction of
the net force.

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Rest and Uniform Motion

A body is said to be at rest, if it does not change its position with respect to its surrounding
with time. On the other hand, a body is said to be in motion, if it changes its position with
time. If an object is traveling with a constant speed and it is moving in a straight line then it
is moving in uniform motion.

If the net force exerted on a body is zero, the body will stay at rest or keep moving in
uniform motion forever. For example, a ball rolling on an ideal frictionless surface will keep
rolling if no other forces are acting on the ball.

Figure 2: On the left, a ball rolling in uniform motion; on the right, a box at rest.

Inertia

Newton’s first law is also called “The law of Inertia”, but what is the inertia of a body? If an
object is at rest, it tends to remain at rest and if it is in motion, it tends to stay in motion. In
other words, the inertia of a body is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its
velocity.

The inertia of a body varies with mass: a more massive object has a greater tendency to
resist changes in its state of motion, and therefore a higher inertia.

For example, as shown in Fig. 1, when the bus driver brakes suddenly, the lower part of a
passenger body, which is in contact with the bus, comes to rest as the bus comes to rest
but, the upper part of the passenger body continues to move forward due to the inertia of
motion. As a result, we fall in the forward direction.

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Figure 3: On the left the bus is moving with uniform motion in a straight line and the
passenger has the same motion. On the right, when the bus stops, the part of the body
(lower part) in contact with bus stops, but due to inertia the upper part continues to move
forward and thus he moves forward.

Friction

The friction force is the force that opposes the motion of one body sliding over another. It is
called friction when the objects are solid, viscosity in liquids but it always opposes the
motion of an object.

The friction force depends on two factors:

a) The materials that are in contact. Rougher surfaces have a higher coefficient of friction.
This makes sense in terms of a model in which friction is described as arising from chemical
bonds between the atoms of the two surfaces at their points of contact: very flat surfaces
allow more atoms to come in contact.

b) The force pushing the two surfaces together. Pushing the surfaces together causes more of
the asperities to come together and increases the surface area in contact with each other.

Its mathematical expression is:

Ffr = μ FN

where FN is the normal force and μ is the coefficient of friction.

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Figure 4: A box on the grass experiences friction when pulled. The direction of the friction
force is opposite to the direction of the pulling force applied by the man in the image. It is
because of friction that we need to put an effort to move something.

Balanced and Unbalanced Forces

Balanced and unbalanced forces are defined as follows:

Balanced forces: two forces are balanced if their magnitude is equal and they are opposite in
direction so that their sum is zero.

Unbalanced forces: two forces are unbalanced if their magnitude is different and they are not
opposite in direction so that their sum is not zero.

If the forces on an object are balanced, the body does not change its motion, while if they
are unbalanced, this is what happens:

a stationary object starts to move in the direction of the net force.

a moving object changes speed and/or direction in the direction of the net force.

A tug of war, where each team is pulling equally on the rope, is an example of how balanced
and unbalanced forces work. When the forces exerted on the rope are equal in size and
opposite in direction, the rope will remain stationary. However if the players on one side of
the rope use more force than the other side, the forces acting on the two sides of the rope
will no longer be balanced. As a result, the losing team will move in the direction of the net
force, such as towards the team that won.

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Figure 5: Two possible scenarios of tug of war game. In (b), the team on the left is using more
force. As a result, the player on the right is pulled towards the winning team, such as in the
direction of the net force. In this example the net force is 300 N - 100 N = 200 N to the left.

Example of forces

Normal force: is the support force exerted upon an object that is in contact with another
stable object. For example, if a book is resting upon a surface, then the surface is exerting an
upward force upon the book in order to support the weight of the book.

Weight force: is the force that acts on a mass due to gravity.

Gravitational force: is an attractive force that occurs between two masses. The Universal Law
of Gravitation is usually stated as an equation:

Fgravity = G M1M2/r2

where Fgravity is the attractive gravitational force between two objects of mass M1 and M2
separated by a distance r. The constant G in the equation is called the Universal Constant of
Gravitation. The value of G is:

G = 6.67 X 10-11 meters3 kilograms-1 seconds-2

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