Back with Forces

Folks worked on their own yesterday since I was out, but we were back on track today with our work with forces and motion. Intro Physics reviewed their work with Newton's 2nd Law of Motion and then turned attention to gravity. We described gravity as a field force of attraction between matter and the two factors (mass and distance) that affected its magnitude. We then took a look at Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation and began working problems focused on this law, which we'll keep on practicing tomorrow.

Physics D and Honors Physics reviewed Newton's 2nd Law of Motion, then turned attention to Newton's 3rd Law. We discussed the full suite of implications associated with this law and what it meant and didn't mean for objects. Physics D then spent time looking at weight and the normal force and practiced calculating the normal force for objects in a variety of situations. Physics E will get to that on Friday because they are going to be involved lab work for static and kinetic friction for the next two days.

Physics F worked with static and kinetic friction in lab today. We first defined friction and it's two varieties, then conducted experiments to measure maximum static friction and kinetic friction acting on a block. Some groups still need to finish data collection and others need to work through data analysis, so we'll continue with our lab when we next meet, which will be Thursday due to tomorrow's half-day.