Dynamics and Newton's Laws of Motion

Flashcards covering key vocabulary terms and definitions from the lecture on Dynamics and Newton's Laws of Motion, designed for exam preparation.

Dynamics

The branch of mechanics concerned with the motion of bodies under the action of forces. It involves understanding forces and concluding something about motion.

Force

A push or a pull that, when applied to an object, is capable of changing the velocity of that object (i.e., its direction or speed), causing it to accelerate. It is a vector quantity.

Newton (N)

The unit of measurement for force, representing kg·m/s².

Free-body Diagrams (FBD)

A visual tool to represent an object as a dot and draw all forces acting on it as arrows coming from the dot, often separated into components for vector math.

Resultant Force (ΣF)

The vector sum of all forces acting on an object, often represented by the symbol Σ (Sigma) for 'the sum of'.

Newton's Second Law

States that an object with mass 'm' experiencing a non-zero net resultant force (FR) will accelerate (a) such that a = FR / m, or F_R = ma.

Force of Gravity

The force acting on anything with a mass 'm', calculated as F_G = mg, where g = 9.8 m/s² and always points downwards.

Newton's First Law

States that if the resultant force acting on an object is zero, the object does not accelerate; it continues at a constant velocity (constant speed without changing direction). Commonly: 'objects in motion tend to stay in motion, objects at rest tend to stay at rest, until acted on by an external, unbalanced force.'

Acceleration on an Inclined Plane (neglecting friction)

The acceleration of an object along an inclined plane is generally given by a = g sin θ, where θ is the angle of the incline.