I have four statements here and I want you to think about which of
of these statements are true and the first statement is an object in motion will slow down
unless it is acted on by an unbalanced force in the direction of motion - interesting
second statment, an object in motion will maintain it's speed and direction
forever, unless acted on by an unbalanced force- also very interesting.
Third statement, an object at rest will stay at rest, unless acted on by an unbalanced
force. And then the fourth statement, an object acted on an by a unbalanced force will always
acclerate in the direction of the unbalanced force
So, i'll leave you to think about those statements, and figure out
which of those statements are actually true.
It might be none of them, it might be all of them, or some combination of them.
Now that's try to think about each of these statements.
So first of all an object in motion will slow down, unless it is acted on
by an unbalanced force in the direction of motion. Well this, at least, on a first cut
kind of seems consistant with our everyday experience. If i'm pushing some furniture
across the room, so let's say that this is, that this is the carpet of my house,
and i'm pushing a television set -let's say it's one of those old school heavy television set-
(so i'm pushing a television set), the only way that I can keep it in motion is that I keep
pushing on it. So let me draw my force of pushing (my force of pushing). So let's call
that right there the force of Sal pushing the television set. So the only way that
I can keep (the only way that I can keep) my television set moving seems like if I keep applying
this pushing force on it. And I were to stop doing that, it seems like it will slow down.
So on a first cut everday experience, this seems like it would actually maybe be true.
It only seems that way, because i'm actually not accounting all of the forces in this situation.
There is not just the force of me pushing. There is also the force of friction.
(There is also the force of friction.)
So i'll call that, there is also the force of friction. And if I want to keep this
TV moving at a constant veloctiy, my force of pushing (that make that the vectors look
about the same magnitude, becuase they need to be the same magnitude)
If I want to keep my television set at a constant velocity in the direction that i'm
pushing, I have to exactly offset the force of (the force of) friction.
If my force of pushing is less than the force of friction, then the TV set will to decelerate.
If my force of pushing is larger than the force of friction, then my TV set will accelerate.
But in the scenario right now, I have an object in motion, but there's actually a
balanced force. My pushing is completely balanced by the force of friction.
Another scenario, if we were to go to deep space (i'm not even thinking about air resistance
right here), but if we were to go into space, where, especailly deep space, no planets around, complete
vacuum, if an object is in motion (if an object is in motion), and there is absolutely
no forces balanced or otherwise, there are absolutely no forces acting on it,
then that object is going to stay in motion. The only way it might change its direction
or decelerate or accelerate is if there is a net force on it.
And just by going back to this example, the only reason why it will slow down, if I
were to stop pushing, is becuase there is a net force on it, the force of friction.
And if you want to think about it, there would probably be very minor amount of
air resistance. So this actually isn't true. An object in motion does not have to slow down
,unless it is acted on by an unbalanced force.
An object in motion can stay in motion, as long it is being acted on either by a balanced force, or (i guess)
a set of forces that balance each other, or no forces at all.
So this is not (that is not) true. An object in motion will maintain it's speed and direction forever
unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
This is true! This is exactly what's happening right over here in the case of a (I guess) a block
moving through space in a vacuum. If there are no forces acting on it (no net forces acting on it)
it is not going to change its velocity. Similarly, you could have this situation,
where you actually have forces acting on it, but they balance each other out.
In this situation, as long as I can keep pushing forever, and the floor doesn't change, and so the
friction doesn't change, this thing will keep moving in that direction, theoretically forever.
The only way to change its direction or accellerate in one direction or another direction, would
be to have an unbalanced force. Maybe if my force of pushing were larger than the force
of friction, or the force of friction were larger than my force of pushing.
So this right over here is absoluely true.
Third statement, an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced
force. And this is actually pretty intuative, I think, for people. If you just leave
something alone (if you just leave something alone) it's just going to stay alone.
It's not going to start spontaneously moving.
And so, this is true. It's not just the situation where there is no forces; it could also be
the situation that's it's going to stay at rest, if there are balanced forces acting on it.
And so the only way you can actually get this thing to come out of that rest position
is if you have a net force, an unbalanced force.
If, let's say, this force right here is (is) any amount larger than this force
right over here, if they don't completely balance out. So this, once again, is true.
Last statement, an object acted on by an unbalanced force will always accelerate in the direction
of the unbalanced force. So if I have an object, and there's an unbalanced force, and if we
net out all the forces, let's say, the direction is in the force's net out and we get a force
acting in this direction. This is actually true! The object will always accelerate
if it has an unbalanced force acting on it in that direction, it will accelerate if there's
a net force in that direction. And there's another way of thinking about it.
If you see an object that is not accelerating, like my TV that's moving at a constant velocity or this thing
that's just traveling through space, if you see something that is not accelerating, that
means that there must not be an unbalanced force acting on it.
So could have balanced forces acting on it, or you could have no forces on it at all,
but you can't have an unbalanced force. So if you have an unbalanced force, the thing will
be accelerating.