Continuing on With Forces

Physics A went over their Chapter 3 exams, then turned attention to forces. We discussed the nature of forces, the difference between contact and field forces and the use of free-body diagrams to document the forces acting on an object. We'll use those free-body diagrams tomorrow to help us with our calculations of net force acting on an object. Physics B did this yesterday and was supposed to move on to Newton's 2^nd and 3^rd laws of motion, but we took extra time to go over the test and homework, so that will be the focus of tomorrow's work.

Honors Physics reviewed their lab investigation and also the last batch of homework before addressing any last-minute issues for tomorrow's exam. If you need more discussion about the latter problem types, don't forget to check out the videos that were posted yesterday. Monday - Work and Energy!

Introductory Physics reviewed their Chapter 10 exams and then turned attention to more concepts associated with forces. Newton's 1^st and 2^nd laws of motion. The 1^st law of motion describes how the motion of an object is governed by its inertia until the object is acted upon by a net external force. Even if forces act on the object, if the F_net = 0, the object's remains unchanged. We then took a look at the 2^nd law to discover a way to assess the magnitude of the object's change of motion. The acceleration an object experiences is directly proportional to the F_net and inversely proportional to the object's inertia, measured by its mass. The equation associated with Newton-2 (F_net = ma is the quantitative way of assessing the size of the object's acceleration or or applied external force. Tomorrow, we'll check over the homework problems, add a few more for practice, then turn our attention to a specialized acceleration - acceleration due to gravity - and how it is involved with a specialized force known as weight.