Unit 5: Continued

In a Merry Go Round, the ride rotates slowly at a constant velocity. The ride cannot accelerate because of inertia & newton's first law of motion. If the small children on the ride are traveling at the same speed as the ride while on it, and then the ride suddenly stops, the children would want to keep moving due to the fact that an object in motion will tend to stay in motion. Especially since there is no seatbelt, there is nothing to protect the kids from flying out of the ride when it stops. Which is why the ride goes so slowly.

Newton's Laws of Motion made much more sense today, after being explained. His first law states that an object in motion will tend to stay in motion, and an object at rest will tend to stay at rest, unless acted upon by an outside, unbalanced force. This is shown through my friend, who is sitting on the floor. Nothing is pushing him or trying to change his velocity, so there he sits. He is in a balanced state because he does not accelerate. His normal force is pushing up, while his mass is pushing down.

Newton's second law states that and object with a large mass will accelerate slower than one with a lighter mass. Acceleration of an object is directly proportional to its force. The faster the acceleration, the stronger the force. For example, if two cars come across a yellow light (same distance apart), and one car is going 25 mph and the other is going 50 mph, the one going faster is going to have to put more force on their break to slow down than the one that is going slower.

Newton's third law is the action reaction law. For every action, there is an equal and oposite reaction. This is shown here with two of my friends. They are playing that game where you're trying to get the other person to fall over by pushing them with your hands. You have to stay in the same place, and you can only push your hands against theirs to make them fall over. Josh has an advantage because he's taller and heavier, so Nina really can't win. But, if they were pushing on each other equally, their positive and negative foce would cancel out, causing them both to go nowhere.

If they were just standing next to each other and I were to try to knock them over one at a time, guess who would be easier? Nina, of course, because she has a smaller mass and would require less force to try and push her out of her state of rest. (Things that are at rest tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside unbalanced force). So while I run up towards her and try and push her, she of course gets knocked down. She gets up and hits me because she doesn't know why I just ran into her. While she is hitting me, I am also hitting her back with the same force. However, because she is a bit smaller than me, she feels the impact more than I do.