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Newton’s Laws
of Motion
Background
 Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) an English
scientist and mathematician famous for his
discovery of the law of gravity also
discovered the three laws of motion. Today
these laws are known as Newton’s Laws of
Motion and describe the motion of all
objects on the scale we experience in our
everyday lives.
“If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has
been owing more to patient attention, than to any
other talent.”
-Sir Isaac Newton
Newton’s Laws of Motion
1st Law of Motion
 An object in motion tends to stay in   motion and
an object at rest tends to   stay at rest unless acted
upon by an   unbalanced force.
2nd Law of Motion
 Force equals mass times acceleration
(F = ma).
3rd Law of Motion
 For every action there is an equal and opposite
reaction.
Newton’s First Law

An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion

tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced
force.
What does this mean?

 Basically, an object will “keep doing

what it was doing” unless acted on by
an unbalanced force.

 If the object was sitting still, it will

remain stationary. If it was moving at
a constant velocity, it will keep moving.

 It takes force to change the motion of

an object.
What is meant by unbalanced
force?

 If the forces on an object are equal and opposite, they are

said to be balanced, and the object experiences no change
in motion. If they are not equal and opposite, then the
forces are unbalanced and the motion of the object
changes.
Some Examples from Real
Life
 A soccer ball is sitting at rest. It
takes an unbalanced force of a
kick to change its motion.

 Two teams are playing tug of war.

 They are both exerting equal force on the rope in
opposite directions.
 This balanced force results in no change of motion.
Newton’s First Law is also called the
Law of Inertia

Inertia:
The tendency of an object to resist changes in its state of motion

 The First Law states that all objects have inertia.

 The more mass an object has, the more inertia it has (and the
harder it is to change its motion).
 The key point here is that if there is no net force resulting from
unbalanced forces acting on an object (if all the external forces
cancel each other out), then the object will maintain a constant
velocity. If that velocity is zero, then the object remains at rest
There are many excellent examples of Newton's first law involving
aerodynamics

 The motion of an airplane when the pilot changes the throttle setting

of the engine is described by the first law.
 The motion of a ball falling down through the atmosphere.
 A model rocket being launched up into the atmosphere are examples
of Newton‘s first law.
 The motion of a kite when the wind changes can also be described by
the first law.
More Examples from Real
Life
A powerful locomotive begins to pull a
long line of boxcars that were sitting at
rest. Since the boxcars are so massive,
they have a great deal of inertia and it
takes a large force to change their motion.
Once they are moving, it takes a large
force to stop them.

On your way to school, a bug

flies into your windshield. Since
the bug is so small, it has very
little inertia and exerts a very
small force on your car (so small
that you don’t even feel it).
 If objects in motion tend to stay in
motion, why don’t moving objects
keep moving forever?
Things don’t keep moving forever because
there’s almost always an unbalanced force
acting upon it.
 A book sliding across a table slows
down and stops because of the
force of friction.

 If you throw a ball upwards it

will eventually slow down and
fall because of the force of
gravity.
 In outer space, away from gravity and any
sources of friction, a rocket ship launched
with a certain speed and direction would
keep going in that same direction and at
that same speed forever.
Newton’s Second Law

Force equals mass times acceleration.

F = ma

Acceleration: a measurement of how quickly an

object is changing speed.
 What does F = ma mean?
 Force is directly proportional to mass and acceleration.
Imagine a ball of a certain mass moving at a certain
acceleration. This ball has a certain force.

 Now imagine we make the ball twice as big (double the

mass) but keep the acceleration constant. F = ma
says that this new ball has twice the force of the old
ball.
 Now imagine the original ball moving at twice the
original acceleration. F = ma says that the ball will
again have twice the force of the ball at the original
acceleration.
 More about F = ma
 If you double the mass, you double the force. If you
double the acceleration, you double the force.

 What if you double the mass and the acceleration?

(2m)(2a) = 4F

 Doubling the mass and the acceleration quadruples

the force.

So . . . what if you decrease the mass by half? How

much force would the object have now?
 What does F = ma say?
F = ma basically means that the force of an object
comes from its mass and its acceleration.
Something very massive (high mass)
that’s changing speed very slowly (low
acceleration), like a glacier, can still
have great force.

Something very small (low mass) that’s

changing speed very quickly (high
acceleration), like a bullet, can still
have a great force. Something very
small changing speed very slowly will
have a very weak force.
Following are some examples of Newton’s
Second Law of motion:

 If you use the same force to push a truck and a car, the car
will have more acceleration than the truck because the car
has less mass.

 It is easier to push an empty shopping cart than a full one,

because the full shopping cart has more mass than the empty
one. This means that more force is required to push the
shopping cart.
Example Continue….

 When riding a bicycle, the bicycle acts as mass and our leg
muscles pushing on the pedals of the bicycle is the force.

 Suppose two people are walking and among the two people,
if one is heavier than the other, then the one weighing
heavier will walk slower because the acceleration of the
person weighing lighter is greater.
Newton’s Third Law

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Statement: To every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction.

 It means that if a body A exerts a force F1 on a body B, and

the body B exerts a force F2 on body A, then:

 F1=F2
 That is, they are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction.
What does this mean?

 For every force acting on an object, there is an

equal force acting in the opposite direction. Right
now, gravity is pulling you down in your seat, but
Newton’s Third Law says your seat is pushing up
against you with equal force. This is why you are
not moving. There is a balanced force acting on
you– gravity pulling down, your seat pushing up.
 Think about it . . .
What happens if you are standing on a
skateboard or a slippery floor and push against
a wall? You slide in the opposite direction
(away from the wall), because you pushed on
the wall but the wall pushed back on you with
equal and opposite force.

Why does it hurt so much when you stub

your toe? When your toe exerts a force on a
rock, the rock exerts an equal force back on
your toe. The harder you hit your toe against
it, the more force the rock exerts back on
your toe (and the more your toe hurts).
Following are some examples of Newton’s
Third Law of motion:

 A swimmer pushes the water backward by his/her hands and

in return the water pushes the swimmer forwards, thus
enabling him to go forward during swimming.
 A man walking on the ground: While walking, a person
pushes the ground in the backward direction, and the ground
in return pushes the person in the forward direction, thus
making him/her walk.
 A bird while flying pushes the air downwards with the help
of its wings. Consistent with Newton’s third law of motion,
the air pushes the bird upwards.
Example Continue….

 When a person is lying on a bed, his weight is opposed by a

reaction force from the bed (assuming it must be there
because of Newton’s third law of Motion). In turn, both
forces cancel each other out, and the person enjoys the
equilibrium position.
 There are a million more examples of Newton’s third law of
motion in our environment. If you observe closely, you can
find it anywhere and everywhere.
Review
Newton’s First Law:
Objects in motion tend to stay in motion
and objects at rest tend to stay at rest
unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Newton’s Second Law:

Force equals mass times acceleration

(F = ma).

Newton’s Third Law:

For every action there is an equal and

opposite reaction.
Refrences
 [Link]
ml#:~:text=The%20motion%20of%20a%20ball,described%
20by%20the%20first%20la
 [Link]
second-law-of-motion/
 [Link]
action-reaction-pair/
 [Link]
+examples&sxsrf=ALeKk00Vzkt1RDAniRVfoe5iYFa9qRo
YMQ:1609428744604&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ve
d=2ahUKEwii5_OkxfjtAhXTWhUIHaahD7sQ_AUoAXoE
CCgQAw&biw=1600&bih=722
 [Link]
ns-laws/newtons-laws-of-motion/a/what-is-newtons-second-
law