Newton's Three Laws of Motion (1/30 - 2/2)

https://goo.gl/yBtm5D

Summary:

     Newton's three laws of motion dictate how matter interacts with other matter. The first law of motion is the law of inertia. It states that any object in motion or at rest will stay the way they are unless a force acts upon it. For example, a pencil at rest will remain at rest unless a force acts upon it, such as a hand pulling it up. The second law of motion states that acceleration is proportional to the net force of an object. In other words, force is the equivalent to mass times acceleration (f = m x a). If an object has more mass, the more force is needed for more acceleration. Throwing a paper wad and having it accelerate is rather easy since it has very little mass. Throwing a bowling ball, however, is much more difficult as it requires more force for it to accelerate at the same magnitude as the paper wad. Finally, the third law of motion states that every action has equal and opposite reaction. For example, if you throw a ball at a wall, the ball will make contact will the wall with a forward force. In return, the wall will create an opposite yet equal force that will make the ball bounce back.

SP3 - Planning and Carrying Out Investigations: 

     This week, rather than trying to find out how Newton's three laws of motion works, I was, along with another partner trying to prove that it works. The first part of the lab was proving that the third law of motion worked. To do this, I sat on a swivel chair and jumped off of it, making the swivel chair and I go in opposite directions. My partner then recorded the data of how far the chair and I were from our original positions. The more force applied to the jump, the farther the chair and I traveled. We concluded that the third law of motion was correct. The second part was proving that the law of inertia was correct. To do this, we placed an index card on a cup and a penny on the index card. My partner and I flicked the index card and observed as the penny stood still and fell into the cup. The penny followed the law of inertia, as it stood still until gravity was applied onto it from the absence of the index card. The final part of the lab was proving the second law of motion. My partner and I set up a race track with one elevated side and placed a large marble at the bottom. At the top we dropped a small marble at the bottom and it pushed the large marble to the end of the track (which was 120 cm) in 4 seconds. We reversed the positions of the marbles and saw that the larger marble pushed the smaller marble to the end of the track in only half the time. From that, we concluded that the acceleration of the small marble was greater than the large one since the marbles pushing each one differed in force.