KEY CONCEPTS

NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION

1. NEWTON’S FIRST LAW - STATIC EQUILIBRIUM

Whereas kinematics describes motion without regard to the cause of that motion,
dynamics specifically studies the relationship between motion and the forces that result
in that motion. The study of dynamics deals with such concepts as why an object
moves, and what makes it start or stop moving. The main concept we are concerned
with in the study of dynamics is force. A force is any kind of push or pull on an object.
Thus, a force is required to push a crate or to throw a ball.

In 1687 in his great work The Principia, Sir Isaac Newton described three rules,
known as Newton’s Laws of Motion, that relate the concepts of force and motion.
Newton’s first law states:

Every body continues in its state of rest or of uniform speed in a straight

line unless acted on by a nonzero net force.

In other words an object that is at rest remains at rest unless a force pushes or pulls on
it. Likewise, an object that is moving will continue to move, without changing its speed
or direction, unless a force is exerted upon it. This tendency for objects to resist a
change in their motion is called inertia. An object’s mass is a measure of its inertia.
Thus, the more massive an object, the more difficult it is to move or alter the motion of
that object. The SI unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). Mass is not the same thing as
weight. Mass is an intrinsic property of the object, whereas weight is actually a
measure of some force on the object. At first glance, Newton’s first law does not seem
to apply to real world objects because they slow down without any apparent force acting
on them. Actually, these objects are being acted upon by forces such as friction and air
resistance, which are not readily visible. For simplicity, such forces are often ignored in
dynamical studies.

2. NEWTONS SECOND LAW - DYNAMICS OF A SINGLE PARTICLE

Newton’s first law states that a force is required to change an object’s motion, but
it doesn’t specifically indicate how that force is related to the object’s acceleration. This
is provided by Newton’s second law, which states:

The total or net force on an object is equal to its mass times its
acceleration.
 KEY CONCEPTS
NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION

Mathematically, it is given as:

ΣF = ma

This is probably the most important equation in Newtonian mechanics. Notice that both
force and acceleration are vectors, whereas mass is a scalar. The net force is the
vector sum of all forces acting on an object. The unit of Force is the newton (N). A
newton is defined as:

kg ⋅ m
N=
s2

In other words, if you push on a 1 kg mass with a force of 1 N, it will accelerate at a rate
of 1 m/s2.

3. NEWTON’S THIRD LAW – SYSTEMS OF TWO OR MORE BODIES

Newton’s third law explains where forces come from, and how they are applied.
It states:

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

In other words, any time one object pushes on another, the other object pushes back
with a force that is equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction. For example, if you
push forward on a crate with a force of 100 N, the crate pushes backward on you with
the same force of 100 N. You can never have one force without the other. A common
misconception is that action-reaction pairs should cancel each other. In fact, the two
forces never cancel out, because they are acting on different objects. If an action is a
vehicle pushing a crate, then the reaction is the crate pushing back on the vehicle. The
first force causes the crate to move, while the second makes it more difficult to move
the crate.

4. EXAMPLES OF VARIOUS FORCES

The weight of an object on the Earth is a measure of the force of gravity on that
object. The acceleration due to gravity near the Earth’s surface, denoted as g, is a
vector pointing towards the Earth’s surface. Newton’s second law can be used to
determine the weight of an object, which is just the force due to gravity:

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NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION
Fg = mg

Notice that the weight of an object depends on both the mass and the acceleration due
to gravity. An object sitting on a floor has weight because gravity is pulling down on it.
However, the object is not accelerating downward. That is because there is another
force, known as the normal force, acting upon it to keep it from accelerating through
the floor. This is called the normal force because it is always perpendicular to the
surface. The normal force arises because the molecules of the floor and the object
resist being pushed together. Its magnitude is always exactly what is required to prevent
an object from moving through some surface. The normal force is not a reaction force
to gravity. Both gravity and the normal force act on the same object, whereas action
reaction pairs always act on different objects.

Friction is a force that resists the motion of an object sliding on a surface. It

comes in two common varieties, static and kinetic. Static friction occurs when an object
is at rest on the surface. It is the force necessary to prevent an object from sliding, and
can vary from zero to some maximum value. The force of static friction is given by the
equation:

Ffric ≤ μsFN

where μs is a material-dependent constant known as the static coefficient of friction.

Kinetic friction, occurs when an the object is sliding on a surface, and is directed in the
direction opposite that of the object’s motion. It is given by the equation:

Ffric = μk FN

where μk is a material-dependent constant known as the kinetic coefficient of friction.

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NEWTON’S LAWS OF MOTION
It is important to remember that forces are vector quantities and are not limited to
a single dimension. Forces exerted within a two-dimensional plane can be broken down
into forces acting in the x and y directions:

ΣFx = ma x
ΣFy = ma y

The x and y components can then be manipulated independently. It is generally also

helpful to choose a coordinate system in such a way that an object’s acceleration is
directed along one of the coordinate axes. Doing so can simplify calculations.

5. PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGY

The following steps are useful for solving dynamics problems:

1. Identify all the forces acting on each independent object. If there is

more than one object, remember action reaction pairs, but also
remember that they act on different objects.

2. Chose coordinate axes that simplify the problem. Generally put the
acceleration and as many unknown forces as possible on axis.

3. Break the forces into components and use Newton’s Second law to
write equations in the x and y directions.

FNet, x = ∑ Fx = max
FNet, y = ∑ Fy = ma y

4. Insert any 0 values.

5. Solve the equations for the unknown quantities.