NEWTON’S LAWS

A FORCE is a push or pull exerted on a body. It is a vector quantity, having magnitude and
direction.

An UNBALANCED FORCE on an object causes the object to accelerate in the direction of the
force. The acceleration is directly proportional to the force and inversely proportional to the mass
of the object.

The MASS of an object is a measure of the inertia of the object. INERTIA is the tendency of an
object at rest to remain at rest, and of an object in motion to continue moving with unchanged
vector velocity.

The STANDARD KILOGRAM is an object whose mass is defined to be one kilogram. The
masses of other objects are found by comparison with this mass. A gram mass is equivalent to
0.001 kg. The British or English unit of mass is the slug; one slug is 14.594 kg.

The NEWTON is the SI (mks) unit of force. One Newton (1 N) is that unbalanced foce which
will give a 1 kg mass an acceleration of 1 m/s 2. The dyne force unit is 10-5 N. The pound force
unit is 4.45 N.

NEWTON’S FIRST LAW OF MOTION (Law of Inertia): If the external force acting on an
object is zero, then the vector velocity of the object will not change. An object at rest will remain
at rest; an object in motion will continue in motion with constant velocity along a straight line. A
body accelerates if only an unbalanced force acts on it.

NEWTON’S SECOND LAW OF MOTION (Law of Acceleration): If F is the resultant

external force acting on an object of mass m, then the acceleration a of the object is related to F
by

F = ma

In the SI system, F is in newtons, m is in kg, and a is in m/s2. In the English system, F is in

pounds, m is in slug, and a is in ft/s2

NEWTON’S THIRD LAW OF MOTION (Law of Interaction): for every force exerted on
one body, there is an equal, but oppositely directed, reaction force. This is often called the law
of action and reaction. Notice that the action and reaction forces act on different bodies/objects.

LAW OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION: Two masses, m1 and m2, attract each other with
forces of equal magnitude. The attractive force is given by

F=
G m1m2
r2
where
F = is the force of attraction
m1 & m2 = mass of the two bodies
r = is the distance between the two
G = is the gravitational constant
= 6.67 x 10 -11 Nm2/ kg2

The WEIGHT of an object is the force of gravitation which pulls on the object. On the earth, it
is the gravitational force exerted on the object by the earth. Its units are newtons (SI) and pounds
(English).

RELATION BETWEEN MASS AND WEIGHT: Mass is a measure of the inertia of an object,
while weight is the force of gravity on the object. They are not the same in either concept or
units. However they are related. If an object of mass m falls freely toward the earth under the
pull of gravity (a force w, the object’s weight), then the acceleration of the object is the free-fall
acceleration. Therefore, for a freely falling body, F = ma becomes w = mg. The following
relation exists between the weight and mass of an object: w = mg.
Because g = 9.8 m/s2 or 32 ft/s2 on earth, a 1-kg object weighs 9.8 N and a 1-slug object
weighs 32.2 lbs on earth.