Kinematics is the study of objects in motion, without asking anything about why the object is moving. We will focus on translational motion with constant acceleration. 12.1 One-dimensional kinematics Say you are driving in a car along a long, straight Continue Reading
11.4 Problem solving The process for solving problems with torque is nearly identical to the process for solving problems with force (see section 9.4). However, instead of a free body diagram—which represents the system as a single point—we’ll use an Continue Reading
11.2 Newton’s laws, applied to rotation As we have seen throughout this entire course, physical quantities dealing with translational motion tend to have analogous counterparts for rotation. We can think of two of Newton’s laws in terms of rotation: Inertia: Continue Reading
If you are attempting to push open a door, you do not push on it right next to the hinges. Even if you push with equal force near to the hinges, and then far from the hinges, you’ll find the Continue Reading
10.2: Work and energy Imagine now that I’m picking up my 7 kg cat from section 10.1. I need to exert some force to do so, and I increase his potential energy—the work I did on him was positive. Now Continue Reading
10.1: Work I have a large cat whose mass is 7 kg. If he wants to jump up onto a table 1 m above the ground, his potential energy needs to increase by about 70 J \(\left(U = mgh \approx Continue Reading
9.8 Universal gravitation Imagine that you launch a cannonball straight out of a cannon; it goes a bit, then lands. What happens if you shoot it with a bit more velocity? What if you shoot it really fast? You could shoot it Continue Reading
Copyright © 2021 Dan Roth This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except for figures as noted in their captions. Revised on: 29 June 2021
9.7 Circular motion Newton’s first law (inertia) tells us that an object’s velocity will only change if the object is acted upon by some force. Velocity is a vector—both magnitude and direction are important. Therefore, your velocity can be changing, Continue Reading
9.6 Inclined planes Let’s say you have a box of snakes sliding down a frictionless inclined plane, and you want to know the acceleration. Of course, you begin by drawing your free body diagram: Then you apply Newton’s second law: Continue Reading