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Forces: by Georgina Holmes

Notes made by a grade 9 student. Class notes, textbooks, professionals, online resources and even contact with the exam board ensures these notes are comprehensive. Complied with meticulous detail to ensure every part of the syllabus against the more detailed teacher's guide and lesson plan to ensure every possible question and detail is covered.

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Georgina Holmes
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35 views

Forces: by Georgina Holmes

Notes made by a grade 9 student. Class notes, textbooks, professionals, online resources and even contact with the exam board ensures these notes are comprehensive. Complied with meticulous detail to ensure every part of the syllabus against the more detailed teacher's guide and lesson plan to ensure every possible question and detail is covered.

Uploaded by

Georgina Holmes
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 16

FORCES

BY GEORGINA HOLMES
CONTENTS

• What are forces?


• Force labels
• How to investigate forces
• Balanced forces
• Unbalanced and resultant forces
• Reaction force
• Hooke’s law
• Terminal Velocity
• Density and floating
• Moments, levers and balancing forces
• Weight and mass
• Glossary (*)
WHAT ARE FORCES?

A force can be a push or a pull. For example, when you push open a door
you have to apply a force to the door. You also have to apply a force to
pull open a drawer.

You cannot see a force but often you can see what it does. Forces can
change the speed of something, the direction it is moving in or its shape.
For example, a car moves when thrust is applied. Or when you squash and
shape play dough forces are applied.

Measuring forces

Forces can be measured using a Newton meter. Newton meters contain a


spring connected to a metal hook. The spring stretches when a force is
applied to the hook. The bigger the force applied, the longer the spring
stretches and the bigger the reading. The unit of force is called the newton,
and it has the symbol N. That’s why we call it the Newton meter.
FORCE LABELS
Lift
• Buoyancy
• Gravity (Weight)
• Friction
Thrust
• Thrust
• Air resistance (Drag) Air resistance/drag

• Lift Weight/gravity

• Stationary
• Push
• Pull
• Twist Air resistance
Friction
• Reaction force Thrust

• Upward
• Downward
Weight/gravity
• Accelerating
• Decelerating
HOW TO INVESTIGATE FORCES

There are different ways of investigating forces, but you always need to remember that it
must be fair therefore you need to know about independent*, dependent* and
controlled* variables.
To investigate friction:
• Pull a mass down a slope
• Drag a shoe along different surfaces
To investigate gravity and terminal velocity:
• Build a parachute that can hold an egg and drop it from a high height (did it break?)
Investigating
To investigate floating/upthrust:
• Drop different materials into water, which float and why?
BALANCED FORCES
When two forces acting on an object are even but they are
acting in opposite directions, it is called a balanced force. A
stationary object would not move, or a moving object would
travel at a steady pace. Examples of balanced forces include:
• Boats
• Standing on the ground
• An object resting on a surface
• An object suspended on rope

Pull of the rope


5,000 N

Pull of the rope


5,000 N
UNBALANCED AND RESULTANT FORCES
Unbalanced forces, unlike balanced forces, occur when two forces acting on
an object are unequal. The overall force acting on the object is called the
resultant force. If the forces are balanced, the resultant force is zero. If the
forces on an object are unbalanced, a stationary object would start to move
in the direction of the resultant force or a moving object would change
speed and/or direction in the direction of the resultant force.
In the example below, the resultant force is the difference between the two forces:
100 – 60 = 40 N (to the right)

A tug of war is another example of an unbalanced force.


Reaction force
from ground
REACTION FORCE

When an object rests on a surface such as the


ground, the reaction force from the ground
balances its weight. The ground pushes up against
the object. Without reaction force you would sink
into the ground.

Weight/gravity
HOOKE’S LAW
Elastic materials, and objects such as springs, change shape when a force is
exerted on them. Stretching happens when the material or object is pulled.
Compression happens when the material or object is squashed.
A change in shape like this is called deformation. Normally the greater force
applied affects the object more. This is why an elastic band gets longer the harder
you pull it, and why a rubber ball squashes more the harder you squeeze it.
If you pull or squeeze too hard, the object may not return to its original size and
shape afterwards, and it may even snap. Until you reach this point, a special case
called Hooke’s Law applies.

Hooke's Law

The extension of a material or a spring is its increase in length when pulled. Hooke’s
Law says that the extension of an elastic object is equal to the force applied to it.
Basically, if the force applied is doubled, the extension doubles. If no force is
applied, there is no extension. You can investigate Hooke’s Law using a spring:
• hang the spring from a stand and clamp
• Measure its current length
• measure the extension of the spring with a ruler when masses have been added
HOOKE’S LAW
TERMINAL VELOCITY
Terminal velocity is your maximum limit of speed. A good example of
terminal velocity is skydiving. When you first jump out of the plane
your weight and gravity over power the air resistance, as you fall
you gradually get slower and stay at this rate, this is called terminal
velocity. When you open the parachute air resistance increases
massively but gradually you reach terminal velocity again. Terminal
velocity is when your forces are equal.
DENSITY AND FLOATING

Objects float in water when their weight is equalled by the upthrust


from the water. The object will sink until the weight of the water it
pushes out of the way is the same as the weight of the object. The
density of an object is how solid an object is. To work out the density of
an object you divide the mass of the object by the volume.
MOMENTS, LEVERS AND BALANCING FORCES
A moment is a turning effect of a force. Forces can make objects turn if there is a pivot. For
example a see saw, when a see saw is empty it is balanced, but if a weight was loaded on to one
end then the see saw would tilt and therefore become unbalance if another weight was put on
the other end then the see saw could be balanced.
• If a nut is difficult to undo with a short spanner, a longer spanner will help. This is because there
will be a bigger moment on the nut, when the same force is applied further from the
pivot/fulcrum.
Calculating moments
To calculate a moment, you need to know two things:
• The distance from the pivot that the force is applied
• The size of the force applied
moment = force × distance
MOMENTS, LEVERS AND BALANCING FORCES

A lever is a simple machine that makes work easier to do. Examples of simple levers include
cutting with scissors, or lifting the lid on a tin of paint with a screwdriver. Levers reduce the force
needed to perform these tasks.
When someone uses a lever, they exert a force (the effort) around a pivot/fulcrum to move an
object (the load). An arm is a good example of a lever, you use your arm on a daily basis to do
things like open doors and draws.
WEIGHT AND MASS
The difference between weight and mass is your mass stays the same
whether your on Earth or even the moon! Whereas your weight changes due
to gravity. Mass is measured in kg. Your weight is measured in Newtons.
GLOSSARY

*Independent variable = The thing you change. E.g. the surface, or the ramp height.

*Dependent variable = depending on the experiment the dependent variable is what


needs to be done to get a result. E.g. pulling a shoe along with different amounts of force.

*Controlled variable = the controlled variable is the things that stay the same. E.g. the
shoe, the distance you pull the shoe, etc.

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