MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
UNIT – 1 MOTION AND FORCE

Various Forces

Forces – What they are and what they do?

Dynamics is the study of the forces that cause objects and systems to move.
To understand this, we need a working definition of force. Our intuitive
definition of force—that is, a push or a pull—is a good place to start. We
know that a push or pull has both magnitude and direction (therefore, it is
a vector quantity) and can vary considerably in each regard.

 There are many different types of forces, but in general terms one can describe any force as the cause
of a deformation or a velocity change. The SI unit for the measurement of forces is the newton (N).
 A (resultant) force causes a change in velocity. If the (resultant) force is zero then the velocity is
constant. Remember a change in velocity is called an acceleration, so we can say that a force causes an
acceleration. A (resultant) force is NOT needed for a constant velocity.
 The fact that a force can cause deformation is also important but the deformation of the ball was, in
fact, not caused by just one force – there was another one form the wall.
 One force can cat on only one object. To be absolutely precise the description of a force should include
- its magnitude
- its direction
- the object on which it cats (or the part of a large object)
- the object that exerts the force
- the nature of the force
 A description of the force shown in the example would thus be “a 50 N push at 20° to the horizontal
acting on the football from the boot”.

Different types of forces

 The following words all describe the forces (the pushes or pulls) that exist in nature.
 Gravitational force, normal reaction, compression, electrostatic force, friction, upthrust, magnetic force,
tension, lift.
 The original of all these everyday forces is either gravitational or electromagnetic. The vast majority of
everyday effects that we observe are due to electromagnetic forces.

Gravitational force: The force between objects as a result of their masses. This is sometimes referred to as
the weight of the object.
Electrostatic force: The force between objects as a result of their electric charges.
Magnetic force: The force between magnets and/or electric current.
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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
Normal force: The force between two surfaces that acts at right angles to the surfaces. If two surfaces
are smooth then this is the only force that acts between them.

Friction: The force that opposes the relative motion of two surfaces and acts along the surfaces.
Air resistance or drag can be thought of as a frictional force – technically this is known
as fluid friction.

Tension: When a string (or a spring) is stretched, it has equal and opposite forces on its ends
pulling outwards. The tension force is the force that the end of the string applies to
another object.

Compression: When a rod is compressed (squashed), it has equal and opposite forces on its ends
pushing inwards. The compression force is the force that the ends of the rod apply to
another object. This is the opposite of the tension force.

Upthrust: This is the upward force that acts on an object when it is submerged in a fluid. It is the
buoyancy force that causes some objects to float in water.

Lift: This force can be exerted on an object when a fluid flows over it in an asymmetrical
way. The shape of the wing of an aircraft causes the aerodynamic lift that enables the
aircraft to fly.

Free-Body Diagrams 
In a free-body diagram
 one object (and ONLY one object) is chosen
 all the forces on that object are shown and labelled.
For example, if we considered the simple situation of a book resting on a table, we can construct free-body
diagram for either the book or table.
 

Real-life situation and free-body diagram for book Real-life situation and free-body diagram for table

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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
Vector Addition: Head-to-Tail Method
The head-to-tail method is a graphical way to add vectors, described in figure below and in the steps following.
The tail of the vector is the starting point of the vector, and the head (or tip) of a vector is the final, pointed end
of the arrow.

R=A+B+C
Vector Subtraction
Vector subtraction is a straightforward extension of vector addition. To define subtraction (say we want to
subtract B from A, written A - B, we must first define what we mean by subtraction. The negative of a vector
B is defined to be -B; that is, graphically the negative of any vector has the same magnitude but the opposite
direction, as shown in figure. In other words, B has the same length as -B, but points in the opposite direction.
Essentially, we just flip the vector so it points in the opposite direction.

 
Calculating a Resultant Vector
If the perpendicular components Ax and Ay of a vector A are known, then A can also be found analytically. To
find the magnitude A and direction θ of a vector from its perpendicular components Ax and Ay, we use the
following relationships:

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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
Resolving a Vector into Perpendicular Components
Analytical techniques and right triangles go hand-in-hand in physics because (among other things) motions
along perpendicular directions are independent. We very often need to separate a vector into perpendicular
components. For example, given a vector like A in figure, we may wish to find which two perpendicular vectors,
Ax and Ay, add to produce it.
The magnitudes of the vector components Ax and
Ay can be related to the resultant vector A and the
angle θ with trigonometric identities.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 

Laws of motion
Newton’s First Law of Motion
A body at rest remains at rest, or, if in motion, remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted on by a net
external force.
Newton’s first law is completely general and can be applied to anything from an object sliding on a table to a
satellite in orbit to blood pumped from the heart.

Mass
The property of a body to remain at rest or to remain in motion with constant velocity is called inertia. Newton’s
first law is often called the law of inertia. As we know from experience, some objects have more inertia than
others. It is obviously more difficult to change the motion of a large boulder than that of a basketball, for
example. The inertia of an object is measured by its mass.

The quantity or amount of matter in an object is determined by the numbers of atoms and molecules of various
types it contains. Unlike weight, mass does not vary with location. The mass of an object is the same on Earth,
in orbit, or on the surface of the Moon. In practice, it is very difficult to count and identify all of the atoms and
molecules in an object, so masses are not often determined in this manner. Operationally, the masses of objects
are determined by comparison with the standard kilogram.

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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
WEIGHT
Mass and weight are two very different things. Unfortunately, their meanings have become muddled in everyday
language. Mass is the amount of matter contained in an object (measured in kg) whereas the weight of an object
is a force (measured in N).
If an object is taken to the Moon, its mass would
be the same, but its weight would be less (the gravitational
forces on the Moon are less than on the Earth). On the
Earth the two terms are often muddled because they are
proportional. People talk about wanting to gain or lose
weight - what they are actually worried about is gaining
or losing mass.
To make things worse, the term ‘weight’ can be
ambiguous even to physicists. Some people choose to
define weight as the gravitational force on an object.
Other people define it to be the reading on a supporting
scale. Whichever definition you use, you weigh less at
the top of a building compared with at the bottom - the
pull of gravity is slightly less!

Although these two definitions are the same if the object is in equilibrium,
they are very different in non-equilibrium situations. For example, if both the
object and the scale were put into a lift and the lift accelerated upwards then
the definitions would give different values.
The safe thing to do is to avoid using the term weight if at all possible! Stick
to the phrase ‘gravitational force’ or force of gravity and you cannot go
wrong.
Gravitational force = m g
On the surface of the Earth, g is approximately 10 N kg- 1, whereas on the surface of the moon, g = 1 .6 N kg- 1.

Normal Force
Whatever supports a load, be it animate or not, must supply an
upward force equal to the weight of the load, as we assumed in
example - when the bag of dog food is placed on the table, the table
actually sags slightly under the load. This would be noticeable if the
load were placed on a card table, but even rigid objects deform when
a force is applied to them.

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MECHANICS: MOTION AND FORCE                                                                                Sayar Naing Ph D (Phys) 
If the force supporting a load is perpendicular to the surface of contact between the load and its support, this
force is defined to be a normal force and here is given the symbol N. (This is not the unit for force N.) The
word normal means perpendicular to a surface. The normal force can be less than the object’s weight if the
object is on an incline, as you will see in the next example.

Tension
A tension is a force along the length of a medium, especially a
force carried by a flexible medium, such as a rope or cable. The
word “tension” comes from a Latin word meaning “to stretch.”
Not coincidentally, the flexible cords that carry muscle forces
to other parts of the body are called tendons. Any flexible
connector, such as a string, rope, chain, wire, or cable, can exert
pulls only parallel to its length; thus, a force carried by a
flexible connector is a tension with direction parallel to the
connector. It is important to understand that tension is a pull
in a connector. In contrast, consider the phrase: “You can’t
push a rope.” The tension force pulls outward along the two
ends of a rope. Consider a person holding a mass on a rope as
shown in figure.

EQUILIBRIUM
If the resultant force on an object is zero then it is said to be in translational equilibrium (or just in equilibrium).
Mathematically this is expressed as follows:
Σ F = zero

From Newton’s first law, we know that the objects in the following situations must be in equilibrium.
1. An object that is constantly at rest.
2. An object that is moving with constant (uniform) velocity in a straight line.
Since forces are vector quantities, a zero resultant force means no force IN ANY DIRECTION.

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