AP Physics B 2014

1
AP Physics Notes Newtons Laws of Motion

Table of Contents

1. Force Defined
2. Newtons Laws
3. Inclined Planes
4. Accelerated Reference Frames
5. Coupled Motion
6. Friction
7. Circular Motion
8 Forces Links
9. References


Force:

Force Force is the agent of change; that which alters motion. We think of a force as a
push or a pull.
1. Forces:
a) Weight (w)
Weight is different from mass. Weight is the force of gravity pulling
on an object. Mass is the amount of matter in an object. Weight will
vary, mass will not.
w = mg ; Weight equals the product of mass and the acceleration due
to gravity.
b) Normal Force (F
N
) (action-reaction pair along with weight) The
magnitude of the normal force does not always equal the weight.
c) Frictional Force (F
f
)
d) Tension (T) ; reaction force in a string.
e) Drag (F
D
) : force of fluid resistance
2. Units of force: Newtons (N) 1 N = 1 kgm/s
2



Newtons Laws of Motion:

Newton's Laws of Motion (1687)
1. 1
st
Law: A body in motion stays in motion and a body at rest stays at rest
unless acted upon by an outside force.
An unbalanced force means the net (total) force on the object is non-zero.
If the net force is zero, the motion will not change.
Newton called this 1
st
law the "Law of Inertia", after Galileo's Law of
Inertia.
Inertia is resistance to a change in motion. The more massive a body, the
greater its resistance to a change in motion. Mass is a measure of inertia.
2. 2
nd
Law: !F = F
net
= ma The net force on an object is equal to the product of
its mass and its acceleration.
Quantifies the 1
st
Law.
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The more massive the object, the smaller the acceleration that results from
a given net force.
Weight comes directly from Newtons 2
nd
law.
3. 3
rd
Law: When two objects interact, for every force exerted on one, there is
an equal and oppositely directed force exerted on the other.
Often called action-reaction.
When you stand on the ground, you exert a force on the ground
downward, there is an equal and opposite force exerted by the ground on
you upward. This reaction force to the weight is called the normal force.

Problem Solving
1. For problem solving, we will draw free body diagrams that show all forces on
an object using arrows pointing in the direction of the force and labeled
appropriately. Choose the direction(s) you want to be positive. For
consistency, we usually will choose up and to the right as positive.
2. We can then generate equations for the net force on the object. These are
vector equations. We will resolve forces into mutually perpendicular
components, and analyze the components separately.
3. Apply Newton's 2
nd
Law to the force components in the direction of the
acceleration.

Example 1: A baseball (0.142 kg) leaving a pitcher's hand at a speed of 45.7 m/s is
clocked using gun-radar. If the throw lasted 0.12 s, what was the magnitude of
the average force exerted on the ball?





Example 2: An old checker cab weighing 17.08 kN cruises along a level road at 35.8
m/s. The driver lets the car coast in neutral, and air drag decelerates it at a non-
constant rate down to 22.4 m/s in 24 s.
Calculate the average deceleration during the period.
Determine the average retarding force acting on the cab.







Example 3: A person pulls a loaded wagon having a total mass of 100 kg. A force of
100 N is applied through the handle at an angle of 30.0 to the ground. Ignoring
friction, compute the horizontal force on the wagon and the resulting horizontal
acceleration.





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Inclined Planes:

Inclined Planes Resolve forces into components parallel to the plane and components
perpendicular to the plane.















F
W"= F
W
cos #=F
N


F
W $$= F
W
sin #=net force parallel to plane

Example 4: A 50.0 kg skier coasts along the surface of a snow-covered slope
(assumed to be frictionless) tilted at an angle of 30.0. Calculate:
The magnitude of the normal force acting on her
The magnitude of the force tending to drive her down the inclined plane
The resulting acceleration ignoring air drag



















F
W
F
W "
F
W %%
#
#
F
N
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Accelerated Reference Frames:

Apparent Weight A scale only measures your true weight in an inertial (non-
accelerated) reference frame. What the scale truly measures is the compression of the
spring inside it, which is the normal force the scale exerts upward.












Example 5: A student with a mass of 40 kg is standing inside an elevator on a scale
that reads in Newtons.
If the elevator is at rest, what does the scale read?
Now suppose the elevator accelerates upward at one-half the accleration of
gravity, What does the scale read?











Tension In An Accelerated Reference Frame

Example 6: Another student, with a mass 50 kg, is rescued from a burning building
by police helicopter. She hangs at the end of a rope dangling beneath the
chopper.
Compute the tension in the rope as read by the spring scale when the craft is
hovering.









In general,
F
N
- F
W
= ma

When a = 0, F
N
= F
W
, and
the scale reads your true
weight.
In a reference frame that is accelerating
upward, the scale will read greater than your
true weight.

In a reference frame that is accelerating
downward, the scale will read less than your
true weight. If the downward acceleration is
"g", the scale reads zero.


F
N
F
W
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Suppose the helicopter accelerates straight downward with respect to the
ground at 3.0 m/s
2
. What is the tension in the rope now?









Coupled Motion:

Coupled Motions (Two Bodies) If bodies are attached by a string that does not stretch,
they accelerate at the same rate. By applying Newton's 2
nd
Law to each body, we get
a system of equations we can solve.

Example 7: Marylou (m
M
= 50 kg) and her boyfriend Doug (m
D
= 70 kg) are tied
together by a rope of negligible mass. She is standing on a frictionless sheet of
wet ice when Doug accidentally steps off a cliff. Luckily, the rope catches on a
tree limb. Assume the unlikely possibility that the tree limb is frictionless and
that the length of the rope is horizontal. Determine
The tension in the rope
The accelerations of the lovers.











Example 8: The Atwood Machine - Two boxes are suspended over a frictionless
pulley with a cord as shown below. The system is released from rest. Calculate
the acceleration of each box and the tension in the cord.












M
1
=
10 kg
M
2
=
8 kg
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Friction:

Friction A force that opposes motion.
1. Static Friction: friction between two objects at rest with respect to each other.
2. Kinetic Friction: friction between two objects that are moving with respect to
each other.
3. Coefficient of Friction (
s
or
k
): dimensionless number that represents the ratio
of the frictional force to the normal force.
a. F
f
=
s
F
N
(for static friction)
b. F
f
=
k
F
N
(for kinetic friction)
c. depends on the types of surfaces in contact; but is independent of the size of
the contact area.
d. static friction is greater than kinetic friction
e. friction makes motion possible

Example 9: A high point of a country fair is the horse-pulling contest. Teams of
horses compete to haul the largest weight using a flat-bottomed sled. How much
force must two horses exert to get the sled moving if the total load is 50 kN and
the coefficient of static friction is 0.60?







Example 10: A climber stands on the rock face of a mountain. The soles and heels
of her boots have a high static-friction coefficient equal to 1.0.
What is the steepest slope she can stand on without slipping?
Assuming her pants have a static friction coefficient for rock of 0.3, what
happens if she sits down to rest?














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Example 11: A washing machine in a wooden crate has a total mass of 100 kg. It is
to be dragged across an oak floor by tugging on a rope, making an angle of 30
with the horizontal.
s
for wood-on-wood is 0.5.
What minimum force will be needed to get the thing moving?
Will it be more or less when #=0?











Example 12: The weight distribution of a Datsun 510 with a driver is 55% in front
and 45% on the rear wheels. With
s
= 0.9 for tires-on-road,
what is the maximum acceleration this rear-wheel drive vehicle can attain?
It actually goes from 0 to 30 mi/h in 4.1 s. How does that compare?












Example 13: A camp is on a mountainside that slopes at 30. Someone is hired to
pull a 200 kg sled up the slippery incline for which the sled-slope coefficient of
kinetic friction is 0.1. If the person can exert a continuous force parallel to the
incline of 200 N, compute the acceleration of the sled.














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Circular Motion:

Circular Motion
1. An object moving in a circle has an acceleration that
is directed toward the center of the circle. This is called
centripetal acceleration.



2. By Newton's 2
nd
Law, there must be a centripetal net force to cause this
acceleration;

3. Centripetal force is not a new kind of force, it just means the net force must be
directed toward the center of the circle. This centripetal force must be provided
by physical forces.
a. For the moon revolving around the earth, F
c
is the gravitational force.
b. For a car rounding a turn on a flat curve, F
c
is friction.
c. It is possible to bank a roadway so that the normal force provides the
centripetal force rather than relying on friction.
4. Vertical circles Need to include weight

Example 14: A frog sits in a bucket. A string is tied to the bucket handle and the
bucket is whirled in a vertical circle. If the mass of bucket and frog is 1 kg and
the radius of the circle is 1 m, determine the minimum speed the bucket must have
at the top of the loop so the frog does not fall out.











Example 15: A circular track with a 20 m radius is to be banked at an angle #
appropriate for a "4.0 minute mile". Compute #.








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Forces Links:

Animations:
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/newtlaws/cci.html
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/circmot/circmotTOC.html
Lessons:
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/newtlaws/cci.html
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/circles/circtoc.html




References:

http://online.cctt.org/physicslab/content/PhyAPB/review/summaries/mechanicsI.asp
www.physicsclassroom.com