Newton's second law

According to Newton's second law...

Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object).

What does this mean?

Everyone unconsiously knows the Second Law. Everyone knows that heavier objects require more force to move the same distance as lighter objects.

However, the Second Law gives us an exact relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. It can be expressed as a mathematical equation:

or
FORCE = MASS times ACCELERATION



This is an example of how Newton's Second Law works:

Mike's car, which weighs 1,000 kg, is out of gas. Mike is trying to push the car to a gas station, and he makes the car go 0.05 m/s/s. Using Newton's Second Law, you can compute how much force Mike is applying to the car.

Answer = 50 newtons


This is easy, let's go on to
Newton's Third Law of Motion