NEWTONIAN PHYSICS I

David J. Jeery
Department of Physics, University of Idaho, PO Box 440903, Moscow, Idaho 83844-0903,
U.S.A.
2008 January 1
ABSTRACT
Lecture notes on what the title says.
Subject headings: keywords dynamics Newtonian physics forces in-
ertial frames Newtons three laws center of mass free body diagrams
gravity near Earths surface normal force tension friction inertial
forces
1. INTRODUCTION
The two key components of rst semester intro physics are Newtonian physics and the
energy concept.
The energy concept is included in Newtonian physics, but it is more general than New-
tonian physics and is part of all physics.
Most people have some understanding of both componentsand that understanding is
both in vague sense in which they turn up in everyday nonscientic live and in the precisely
dened scientic sense.
2
In this lecture, we go into precisely dened Newtonian physicsat our level of under-
standing. We leave the introduction of the energy concept to the lecture ENERGY. A higher
level, Newtonian physics from the start already incorporates the energy concept and a lot
more.
Newtonian physics is dynamics as opposed to kinematics. Kinematics is the description
of motion. Dynamics is kinematics plus the causation of motion. In Newtonian physics,
forces cause motions as well see.
Newtonian physics also allow for the formation structures.
We certainly arnt doing Newtonian physics as Newton formulated it.
Some of the terminology and math methods have changed and some concepts have
evolvedNewton didnt have the energy concept for a main example.
Still its not a million-light years away either from his work.
Hed recognize it if he were here today.
2. THE COMPONENTS OF NEWTONIAN PHYSICS
Newtonian physics has several components.
Euclidean geometry of space is one of them. Lets just assume that we all know what
that isparallel line theorems, triangles, etc.
Then there is time.
Of course, concepts of time pre-dated Newtonian physics.
But as discussed in the lecture INTRODUCTION TO INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS,
Newtonian physics made time well dened by showing that certain ideal systems would have
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exactly periodic motions as a parameter time advanced. That parameter time was consistent
with earlier concepts of time, and so caused no shock in peoples understanding. The ideal
periodic systems are ideal clocks which real clocks used by people approximate to some
degree.
Newtonian time ows the same in all places and frames of reference. This means that
in Newtonian physics ideal clocks everywhere and everywhen can be synchronized and will
stay synchronized. Newton himself wondered if this had to be true, but it was the simplest
hypothesis and nothing people knew until end of the 19th century caused any doubt.
Actually, nowadays we believe that Euclidean geometry only approximately describes
only part of physical space and we understand that time does ow dierently in dierent
frames of reference. Special and general relativity are needed to understand the dierences
from Newtonian concepts.
But in the realm of much of science and human activity, Newtonian space and time very
accurately describe things.
Another component of Newtonian physics is kinematics which is the description of
motion. The most prominent quantities in the description of motion are displacement,
velocity, and acceleration.
Other Newtonian prominent concepts are force and mass.
Force is the cause of accelerations.
A force can also cancel another force and can cause body deformations.
A force or forces can cause structure: e.g., of solids, liquids, planets, stars, galaxies,
cluster of galaxies, andgetting beyond Newtonian physics againnuclei, atoms, molecules,
and the cosmos as whole its thought.
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Mass is the resistance of body to acceleration under a net force.
Still another component is Newtons three laws which give the exact relationships among
force, mass, acceleration.
Then there is the concept of inertial frames which will discuss in 4 below.
One also needs force laws that are independent of Newtons three laws of motion.
All the components mentioned above constitute Newtonian physics. Other ones are
probably needed for an exhaustive discussionbut were exhausted enough.
In my opinion, the components cannot be adequately dened separately, except for
Euclidean geometry.
For example, velocity and acceleration depend on the time concept. But that depends
on ideal periodic systems which are understood in terms of forces, masses, and Newtons
three laws of motion. As a cause of acceleration, force requires understanding the concepts
of acceleration and mass. Mass requires understanding acceleration and force.
And so on.
Except for Euclidean geometry, there seems to be a circularity of denitions.
Things can only be adequately dened in terms of other things that in turn depend on
the rst things dened.
But the circularity is not vicious.
One just has to accept Newtonian physics as a package. The components (excepting
Euclidean geometry) are inextricably connected.
All the bits t together and give a very adequate description of the much of the world
that we observe and much of the scientic and technological realms of interest.
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Of course, as discussed in the lecture INTRODUCTION TO INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS,
we know Newtonian physics is not exactly true. But is believed to be exactly true in the
classical limit (i.e., the limit of relative speeds much less than the vacuum speed of light,
weak gravity, and macroscopic size but much less than the cosmological size scale) and the
much of the world that we observe and much of the scientic and technological realms of
interest are close to the classical limit to high accuracy: i.e., they are in the classical realm.
The classical limit is itself is not really a well dened mathematical limitas you ap-
proach it from one extra-classical realm, you stop getting closer to it after awhile and head o
into another extra-classical realm. For example increasing in size from the realm of quantum
mechanics, things get more and more classical for awhilea long whilebut then you reach
cosmological sizes and things get non-classical again. The classical limit is loosely speaking
the middle of the realm where classical physics works well.
The classical realm is very big.
Thus, Newtonian physics is eminently useful.
Its also much simpler to understand and use than more fundamental theories.
Its also wonderfully beautifuljust take my word for it.
In much of our discussion, we just speak as if Newtonian physics were exactly true: i.e.,
that we live in a Newtonian universe.
Always having to remark that it isnt exactly true would be useless and tedious. We
know that it isnt exactly true well enough to know what we mean.
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3. FORCE CONCEPT
As mentioned in 2, a force is the cause of an acceleration of a system and can also
cancel another force.
A force can also cause deformations of a system. This is not really an independent
property of force. If accelerations of a system happen relative to other parts of the system,
then there will be deformations. Constant velocity deformations can happen too, but an
acceleration was needed to create the velocity doing the deforming in the rst place. Once
the energy concept is introduced, one can also say that forces cause or mediate the transfer
or transformation of energy.
In 5, well delve into the exact way a force causes an acceleration.
Here we can remark that force is a vector quantity. Force cancellation occurs through
vector addition. If the forces sum to zero, there is zero net force.
Forces as the causes of deformations, we touch on as the course proceeds.
In everyday understanding, a force is push or a pull which can be described as a physical
relation between bodies that changes or tries to change something We know a push or pull
does all of the things we say forces do in a vague way.
Forces are understood to be relationships between THINGS. At our level, the THINGS
are systems with mass for contact forces and system with mass and elds for eld forces.
Well discuss contact and eld forces in 3.1.
In nature, there are only four fundamental forces:
1. gravity.
2. the electromagnetic force.
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3. the strong nuclear force.
4. the weak nuclear force.
The two nuclear forces are intrinsically quantum mechanical and cannot be described
by Newtonian physics. In intro physics, we only touch on them at times. They only have
limited impact on our ordinary surface understanding of everyday life.
The electromagnetic force is an immensely complex force.
It has many complex manifestations: the electrostatic force (i.e., the Coulombs law
force), the magnetic force, the chemical bonding forces, the elastic force, friction forces,
tension forces, pressure forces, and on and on.
Actually, the various manifestations cant be clearly separated in most cases. For exam-
ple, an elastic force is a macroscopic manifestation of chemical binding forces. So are friction
forces.
Also special contexts often give rise to special names for the electromagnetic force in
that context: e.g., the normal force which well discuss below in 10.
The complexity of the electromagnetic force makes it hard to understand.
But on the bright side, it makes all of chemistry, and therefore, life possible.
Gravity is arguably much less complex than the electromagnetic force.
Still its plenty complex in many contexts: e.g., the behavior of galaxies.
In the early part of intro physics, we largely restrict ourselves to the case of gravity
near the Earths surface which is very simple. In this lecture, we consider gravity near the
Earths surface in 9.
In the most fundamental theory of modern physics, the standard model of particle
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physics, the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces are united as
manifestations of a single force. Nevertheless, it remains conventional to say there are 4
fundamental forces.
The faith is that in the theory of everything (TOE) (discussed in the lecture INTRO-
DUCTION TO INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS) all the forces will be united. But gravity is
really stubborn and has not yet been brought into the foldthere are theories for how to do
it, but no one established theory.
It will probably remain conventional to say there are 4 fundamental forces even after
the advent of TOE.
3.1. Contact and Field Forces
There is another categorization of forces useful in the macroscopic realm: contact and
eld forces.
A contact force is a force between systems with mass where the systems have to be
touching macroscopically for the force to be exerted.
Most everyday manifestations of the electromagnetic force (e.g., elastic force, tension
force, pressure force, normal force) are contact forces.
A eld force is a force caused by a vector eld.
A eld is a quantity dened at every point in some region of space.
Temperature and pressure are scalar elds. They just have scalar values at each point
in space.
A vector eld has a magnitude and direction at each point in space.
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I have this mental picture of little arrows attached to each point in space. One can only
draw a representative subset in a diagram, of course.
Vector elds causing forces are macroscopic electric elds and magnetic elds and grav-
ity. Gravity only manifests itself as a eld force.
Heres a demonstration of the macroscopic electric eld using a comb and bits of paper.
These elds will be elucidated as intro physics proceeds.
Inertial forces are also eld forcesbut they arnt really forcesits trickywell discuss
them in 14.
Often elds emanate from a body and cause a force on another body. But one can just
have the eld itself without an emanating body. Of course, the eld had to arise somehow,
but that arising may be a long a convoluted story. For example, electromagnetic radiation
can cause a pressure force. The electromagnetic radiation arose from source, but that source
could have been billions of years ago, billions of light-years away and may not exist in the
present of cosmic time.
Field forces are sometimes called body forces since they can act directly whole bodies
not just on surfaces like contact forces.
Field forces can be very long-range. Contact forces are necessarily short-range.
At the microscopic level, all forces are really eld forces. The idea of a contact force
only arises at the macroscopic level.
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4. INERTIAL FRAMES
A frame of reference is just a set of coordinates that one uses for measuring motions.
The frame may be attached to some physical body: e.g., the Earth, a car, the Sun, the center
of the Galaxy. But it may just be an abstract frame one denes in space.
Inertial frames are a special class of frames of reference that are UNACCELERATED
with respect to each other.
The concept of inertial frame is often skirted in intro physics textbooks because its
tricky.
But its also basic and essential.
Newtons laws of motion are referenced to inertial framesor non-inertial frames when
inertial forces are introduced, but lets leave this exception to 14.
Newtons laws are valid in all of spacein a Newtonian universe, of course.
Its just that in using them and calculating with them, one uses inertial frames.
This means that SPACE has a physical nature besides just being space in which things
can be located relative to each other. This physical nature manifests itself in that Newtons
three laws are referenced to inertial frames dened on SPACE. Well see how this is done
in 5. Actually, many basic physical laws from all branches of physics are referenced to
inertial frames.
Where are the inertial frames?
How do we know one when we see one?
Its all a bit tricky.
Newton himself thought that the xed stars dened the basic inertial frame.
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All frames unaccelerated with respect to that frame were also inertial. This is still
a vital ingredient in the inertial frame concept. It it implies that acceleration is inertial
frame invariant since changing from one inertial frame to another can add nothing to an
acceleration vector. As well show explicitly in 8, an acceleration is invariant in value on
transformation between inertial frames. So an acceleration in one inertial frame, is the same
in all inertial frames: same direction, same magnitude.
Naturally, frames of reference attached to the rotating and revolving planets are not
inertial frames.
A system rotating with respect to the basic inertial frame must be an accelerated frame,
and so a non-inertial frame.
Well all non-inertial frames are non-inertial, but some are less non-inertial than others.
The smaller the acceleration of a non-inertial frame relative to the set of inertial frames,
the better it approximates an inertial frame.
Depending on the case, a non-inertial frame may suciently like an inertial frame that
one can treat it as such.
For many, but not all purposes, the surface of the Earth can be treated as an inertial
frame.
But what is the basic inertial frame nowadays?
We now know that the stars are not xed.
They revolve around the center of the Galaxy in complex orbits.
The Galaxy itself is in a complex orbit around the center of the local group of galaxies.
This center seems to be accelerated as well.
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In fact, it seems that virtually all systems with mass are accelerated to one degree or
another. If any arnt, its probably just a uke.
So where is the elusive basic inertial frame.
Is it like the Cheshire Cat, vanished leaving only its smile, the approximate inertial
frames?
Well our best modern theory, there isnt really a single basic inertial frame.
The universe is expanding.
This is literally a growth of space in general relativityits not an expansion into any-
thing.
The analogy often used is the surface of a balloon. The surface a balloon is a boundless
nite two-dimensional surface. Put dots on the balloon and then blow it up. The two-
dimensional space grows and the distances between the dots increases. Of course, real
space is three-dimensionalwhich makes picturing its growth tricky, but mathematically
its intelligible. Our space may or may not be nite and it may or may not be bounded.
Gravitationally bound systems like clusters of galaxies dont participate in this expan-
sion and neither do smaller bound systems like us. Were the dots on the balloon.
Frames of references that participate in the mean expansion of the universe seem to the
best candidates for a class of basic inertial frames.
There is a continuum of such frames.
For every point in space there is one.
Virtually, all matter is revolving and rotating with respect to these inertial frames
participating in the mean expansion of the universe.
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We actually identify our local basic inertial frame from the cosmic microwave background
radiation (CMB) and distant extragalactic radio sources. The CMB is a radiation eld
pervading all space. Its mostly in the microwave bandlike the stu in your microwave
ovensspace is being nuked. The CMB was left over from the Big Bang. It is nearly,
isotropic, and mostly unaected by interactions with matter since the Big Bang. The frames
in which the CMB is most nearly isotropic and the distant extragalactic radio sources are
not revolving are those most near the true inertial frames in our modern picture.
We can use the CMB to determine motions relative to the mean expansion of the
universe. For example, the local group is moving at 627 22 km/s relative to the CMB in a
particular direction (Wikipedia: Cosmic microwave background radiation).
The CMB is most useful for determining linear motion relative to the local basic inertial
frame. For determining rotation relative to this frame, distant extragalactic radio sources
are most useful. They should show vanishingly small rotation around the local basic inertial
frame. The CMB and distant radio sources are used to establish the International Celestial
Reference Frame (Wikipedia: International celestial reference frame).
5. NEWTONS THREE LAWS OF MOTION
Newtons three laws of motion, or Newtons laws for short, are amazingly simple to
write down and recite.
Many people can just rattle them ooften neglecting the part about inertial frames
and the part about center of mass. There are, in fact, no standard wordings for them. Every
textbook just uses its own wording as far as I can tell. I just use my own too.
But they are not at all obvious.
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No one ever rediscovers those laws for themselves.
Even Newton didnt discover them starting from nothing.
He was at the end of a long discussion about what the basic laws of motion were going
before Aristotle to the Pre-Socratic philosophers.
Why arnt they obvious?
Well many motions are immensely complex. Walking for example. We do it easily
enough. But its hundreds of millions of year of evolution were needed to develop walking.
Making robots walk is a formidable task that is only recent years being solved.
But even simpler motions like projectile motion are not so simple.
Near the Earths surface there is always gravity causing an acceleration downward. Then
there is air resistance causing a force that always acts opposite to the direction of motion.
In fact, it takes very carefully controlled experiments to observe Newtons laws in simple
manifestations to high accuracy.
Historically, such experiments began with Galileo.
Of course, it takes more than experiments. One has to theorize the exact mathematical
law to explain what one sees. Also, as Galileo understood, experimental error will always
cause deviations from a mathematically exact physical law. You have to imagine ideal cases
to observe in your imagination the laws acting exactly. In practice, one can always try
approach the ideal result more and more closely.
Idealization has been a tool of physics and all of science ever since Galileo.
Before the three laws though, Im going to introduce the concept of CENTER OF
MASS for SYSTEMS OF PARTICLES.
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Most textbooks leave this to much later and just say that the object in the three laws
can be treated as a particle (a classical point-mass particle).
Ive come to the conclusion that this is NOT pedagogically sound because NOT log-
ically sound. First, classical point-mass particles dont actually existconceptually useful
sometimes, but non-existent. There may actually be point-mass particles actually. We are
not sure. But those point-mass particles are quantum mechanical point masses, not classical
point-mass particles. Quantum mechanical point-mass particles dont obey classical rules.
Second, almost at once to be at all interesting or realistic, well be discussing the three
laws for obviously non-particle objects.
And two questions immediately spring into my mind: what position is assigned to an
non-particle? and doesnt it matter where a force acts on non-particle object?
To my mind it just leaves people wondering what is going on to start with Newtons
three laws for point-mass particles.
5.1. Systems of Particles and Center of Mass
A system of particles is anything with mass really. It could be a single solid object. It
could be a sample of uid. It could be a bunch of objects or a bunch of point-mass particles.
We can treat such a system as a single thing and apply Newtons three laws to it.
But we need to introduce the concept of center of mass.
Now what is center of mass?
The center of mass of system is its mass-weighted mean position. The denition for a
system of particles is
r
cm
=

i
m
i
r
i
m
, (1)
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where r
cm
is the center of mass, each particle is identied by index i, m
i
is the mass of
particle i, m is the mass of the whole system, and r
i
is the position of particle i.
The particles could be thought of as point-mass particles. But more realistically, they
can be thought of as dierential bits of mass. In the classical macroscopic limit, matter is
made of a continuum of matter and not point-mass particles. For a continuum, the center
of mass denition goes over to an integral for a continuous system:
r
cm
=
_
(r )r dV
m
, (2)
where (r ) is system density, dV is the dierential of volume, and the integral is over the
whole volume. The position of an dierential mass (r ) dV is just a single value, and so the
position of such bits is well dened.
Of course, as you get smaller and smaller in scale, quantum mechanics eects become
important. But since we integrate our dierentials over macroscopic regions, we can treat
them classically. Quantum mechanical eects average away for macroscopic motion.
But in our developments, we continue to use the discrete particle formalism for simplic-
ity. Going to the integral formalism is awkward-looking, but is otherwise trivial.
Now the center of mass is an actual point in space. So it has a single denite position
given by the center of mass denition. Thus, the center of mass has single velocity and
acceleration. The formulae for velocity and acceleration are obtained by dierentiation
of equation (1). We assume that all the particles have constant mass here. In lecture,
SYSTEMS OF PARTICLES AND MOMENTUM, we will consider mass-varying
systems briey. To make a complete set, the formulae for center of mass, its velocity, its
acceleration are, respectively:
r
cm
=

i
m
i
r
i
m
, (3)
v
cm
=

i
m
i
v
i
m
, (4)
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a
cm
=

i
m
i
a
i
m
, (5)
where v
cm
is the center-of-mass velocity, a
cm
is the center-of-mass acceleration, v
i
is the
velocity of particle i, and a
i
is the acceleration of particle i.
Often in the future developments when we refer to object or system position, velocity,
or acceleration, it will be understood that we mean the objects center of mass position,
velocity, or acceleration. The context usually makes it clear what is meant.
Long down the road in the lecture SYSTEMS OF PARTICLES AND MOMEN-
TUM, well deal with internal structure of systems in more detail than in this lecture.
An important point is that the center of mass for a set of subsystems treated as particles
in their own right is the center of mass of the overall system. The proof is simple:
r

cm
=

i
m
i
r
i,cm
m
=

i
m
i
(

j
m
ij
r
ij
/m
i
)
m
=

ij
m
ij
r
ij
m
= r
cm
, (6)
where r

cm
is the center of mass for a set of subsystems treated as particles in their own right,
m
i
is the mass of subsystem i, r
i,i
is the center of mass of subsystem i, m
ij
is the mass of
the particle j of subsystem i, r
ij
is the position the particle j of subsystem i, and r
cm
is the
center of mass of the overall system. So
r

cm
= r
cm
(7)
as the proof shows.
The particles in the above proof could be themselves subsubsystems. But the proof is
obviously recursive. As long as you have the true centers of mass for some level of systems,
you can nd the overall center of mass of the system.
If one is actually using discrete subsystems to evaluate the center of mass of a system,
one has to know their subsystem centers of mass adequately.
Now for Newtons three laws.
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5.2. The 1st Law
A short statement of the 1st law is:
A systems center of mass is unaccelerated relative all inertial frames unless the
system is acted on by a net force.
Note that concepts of time, space, force, net force, and inertial frames are all needed
understand this denition.
Everything has to be accepted as part of the Newtonian physics package.
Unaccelerated means that the system center of mass is in straight-line, uniform (i.e.,
constant speed) motion with respect to all inertial frames. Note also that we could say
unaccelerated with respect an inertial frame. Since all inertial frames are unaccelerated
relative to each other, that implies unaccelerated with respect to all inertial frames.
Note that there is no fundamental dierence between being in uniform straight-line
motion or at rest relative to an inertial frame. For any system center of mass in uniform
straight-line motion relative to an inertial frame, there is always an inertial frame in which
it is at rest: i.e., the frame of the center of mass itself.
As mentioned previously, usually for convenience, one refers just to the systems motion
without constantly reiterating system center-of-mass motion. Context tells you what is
meant.
Note also that NO net force acts on the system. There may lots of forces from sources
inside and outside the system exerting forces on the system, but they sum to zero. The cases
of no forces acting on the system and no external forces acting on the system are special
cases.
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Note also moreover that the 1st law tells nothing about the motions of the parts of they
system relative to the center of mass. It takes an analysis regarding the parts as systems in
their own right to say something about those relative motions.
And another thing.
The zero net force condition is frame invariant. It holds in all frames.
This means that the 1st law itself is inertial-frame independent. It applies as stated in
all inertial frames.
In non-inertial frames, one can have accelerations without forces.
5.3. The 2nd Law or F = ma
The 2nd law is best expressed by a formula:

F
net
= ma
cm
, (8)
where

F
net
is the net force on a system, m is the system mass, and a
cm
is the system center-of-
mass acceleration relative to all inertial frames. This acceleration remember is invariant on
transformations between all inertial frames: i.e., it has the same value in all inertial frames.
Note that equation (8) is a vector equation. The net force and acceleration are vectors that
point in the same direction. The mass is a scalar quantity that is always positive. Being
always positive, mass cannot cause a change in dierence between acceleration and force.
As previously mentioned, usually for convenience, one refers just to the systems ac-
celeration without constantly reiterating system center-of-mass acceleration. Similarly, one
just says system velocity and position instead of system center-of-mass velocity and center-
of-mass position. We will usually do this hereafter in this course except when being explicit
is needed for clarity or emphasis. Context tells you what is meant. One also usually drops
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the subscript cm from position, velocity, and acceleration symbols if one knows what one
means too.
To complete the statement of the 2nd law, one must had that the net force and mass
are are reference frame invariant. In any frame of reference, one gets the same values for
them. The components of force may change, but not the magnitude and direction. This
frame invariance of net force, mass, and acceleration implies that the 2nd law is inertial-frame
invariant. The same means that the law applies in all inertial frames. We will explicate what
this means in detail in 8. Note that in non-inertial frames, one can have an acceleration
that does not follow from the 2nd law.
You may wonder where

F
net
actually is? Some forces act over such small regions that
you can say that they are in those regions. But for an extended system many forces may
act on various parts. All these forces must be summed to make

F
net
. The upshot is that
there is no well dened place that

F
net
can be said to be. There isnt any need to assign a
denite place to it either. For mental and speaking convenience, one can think of it as acting
at the center of mass, but giving this location really doesnt add anything to the physical
description.
One often refers to the 2nd law as F = ma without the vector signs or any indication
of F being the net force. This is OK as long as one knows one is simply using F = ma as
expression that means the 2nd law.
Note the NET FORCE appears in the 2nd lawnot any particular forcethe net
force, the vector sum of all forces. Forces from internal and external sources can be acting
on the system and they will aect the relative motions of the system. But only the NET
FORCE aects the system acceleration. In fact, in 5.6, we will show that the internal
forces sum to zero, and so the NET FORCE is also the net external force.
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The 2nd law is understood as the net force causing the acceleration.
One can see from the formula that the magnitude of the acceleration is directly propor-
tional to the magnitude of the net force and the direction of the acceleration is the direction
of the net force.
Now any force can cause an acceleration if it acts alone on the body. This is why we
say that forces cause accelerations. But in the formula it is the NET FORCE that causes
the acceleration as aforesaid.
The mass is the resistance of the system to the acceleration. It is an intrinsic property
of the system and, as mentioned above, it is always positive. One can see how the resistance
to acceleration arises by writing the formula as
a =

F
net
m
. (9)
The acceleration is inversely proportional to the mass. One can determine masses in principle
by using a xed force and measuring accelerations. In actual practice, masses are often
determined using the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass which we discuss in 9.
One sometimes hears that mass is the quantity of matter. This is a sometimes useful
denition. For example, if you had a system made all of one kind of atom. Each atom has
the same mass, and therefore the number of atoms is proportional to the massat least to
high accuracy: there are qualications, we wont go into here.
But quantity-of-matter denition is not the fundamental one. Of course, one could just
say that quantity of matter by denition is the resistance to acceleration. But then quantity
of matter becomes a redundant name.
Now for the course mantra:
Newtons 2nd law is always true and its always true component by component.
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In any intro physics problem involving forces and motions, recite this mantra to yourselfat
least until you have totally internalized itas our friends in the social sciences would say.
The component by component part of the mantra is, of course, because the 2nd law
is a vector law. It is valid for all components. Thus in Cartesian components, we have
F
x,net
= ma
x
, (10)
F
y,net
= ma
y
, (11)
F
z,net
= ma
z
. (12)
Note that if

F
net
= 0, then a = 0 assuming we are not dealing with a zero-mass system
This means that the system is unaccelerated in all inertial frames. The 1st law is now seen
as a special case of the 2nd law.
So in actual fact, one really only has two laws of motion in Newtonian physics: the 2nd
law and the 3rd law. But Newton said he had three laws and three laws it remains by his
convention. So for historical and pedagogical reasons this is a valid convention.
Why did Newton keep the rst law? Well I dont know. But even for him, it may have
been a traditional law since Descartes had earlier considered the motion of a particle in the
absence of a net force.
What if a system has zero mass?
Well there actually are no real zero mass systems. So there is no in-principle problem
in treating them in physics.
However, we often use zero mass systems as an ideal limit for negligibly small mass
systems. For example, say a small mass system is part of a larger system and is constrained
to move with that larger system. If we take the limit that the small mass goes to zero mass,
the acceleration of the larger system goes to a limiting nite value. The net force on the
23
limit zero-mass system is zero, but its acceleration is that of the larger system. Often the
small mass system will have balanced forces acting on it. An example of this situation is the
ideal rope (which we discuss in 11) is usually (but not always) dened to have zero mass
and this a valid approximation as long as it is part of a system.
There are systems (e.g., light or electromagnetic radiation) which have no dened treat-
ment in formal Newtonian physics. One can treat them in Newtonian physics with ad hoc
hypotheses. Ad hoc means for a particular purpose. So ad hoc hypotheses are a special
hypotheses which often are only used to x up a theory to make give the right predictions
in special cases. Ad hoc hypotheses can be justied by more general theories. For example,
they can be used to treat electromagnetic radiation in Newtonian physics to some accuracy.
5.4. The 3rd Law
In short form, the 3rd law (sometimes called the action-reaction law or law of reaction)
is:
For every force there is an equal and opposite force.
This form though a good shorthand is not adequate as the following question illustrates.
Question: If for every force there is an equal and opposite force why dont all
forces cancel out pairwise and and result in no acceleration at all?
a) They do cancel out pairwise and there is no acceleration at all and physics is
all a crock.
b) The forces DONT have to be on the same system and so they dont cancel
out of the net force on all system.
24
c) The forces DO have to be on the same system, and so they dont cancel out
of the net force on all objects.
Yes, its (b).
Pairwise is a common physics jargon meaning in pairs.
A better statement of the 3rd law is:
For every force exerted by a rst system on a second system there is a force
equal in magnitude but opposite in direction exerted by the second system on
the rst. Expressed by a formula, the 3rd law is

F
21
=

F
12
, (13)
where

F
12
is the force the rst system exerts on the second and

F
21
is the force
the second system exerts on the rst. The forces have the same fundamental
nature: i.e., the reaction force to an electromagnetic force is an electromagnetic
force and the reaction force to a gravity force is a gravity force. In the case of the
electromagnetic force, force and reaction force can be dierent manifestations of
the electromagnetic force. For example, the pressure force of a uid can be the
equal and opposite force of the normal force.
The forces in the 3rd law are frame invariant. We will go into detail about what that
means in 8.
Because of the 3rd law one often uses the expression the force between the systems
or the force between the objects. The interpretation of this expression is that system 1
exerts force

F
12
on system 2 and system 2 exerts force

F
21
=

F
12
on system 1. But since
saying this is all the time is tedious, one usually just says force between the systems and
knows what one means when one says it.
25
A secret kept in most intro physics textbooks is that the 3rd law is not always valid even
in classical physics (e.g., Goldstein et al. 2002, p. 8). Newton himself didnt know thisbut
then he didnt know all of classical physics as we now dene it.
The exceptions (of which only ones I know involve the magnetic force) almost never
turn up in intro physicsand so we dont need to worry about them. Well just assume the
3rd law is valid usually without mentioning the qualication that it isnt always valid.
In fact, there are generalizations of the 3rd law that can cover the exceptions (e.g.,
Goldstein et al. 2002, p. 8), and so the situation is not so scandalous as it rst seems. We
wont go into those generalizations of which I know little in any case.
5.5. Force Laws Needed
Newtons three laws of motion would be of limited use if there was no way to calculate
forces independently of the three laws.
For example, you can calculate a net force from a observed acceleration of a system,
but then what? Well one could then use that known force to calculate the acceleration of
another system to which the force would be applied.
For another example, you could perhaps use the 3rd law then to nd the force on the
system that is exerting a force on the rst object and then calculate the second systems
acceleration.
But these examples are theoretically unsatisfactory. One always needs to make mea-
surements to nd the forces. One cant imagine getting far in this approach to understanding
all the motions of the universe.
One needs force laws that give you force in terms of other physical variables.
26
In 9 and following sections, we introduce some important force laws that allow the
analysis of the motions of many systems.
5.6. Newtons Three Laws and Consistency
Actually, one has to show that Newtons three laws as we have stated them are consis-
tent.
Say one had a system consisting of a set of subsystems. The laws as we have stated
them should apply to the subsystems treated as systems in their own right.
In order for Newtons three laws to be consistent, we should be able to recover them for
the system as a whole if we applied them to the subsystems. If we didnt, Newtons three
laws wouldnt be correct for the system which means they wouldnt be correct at all.
Newtons 2nd law applied to subsystem i is

F
i,net
= m
i
a
i
, (14)
where

F
i,net
is the net force on subsystem i, m
i
is the mass of subsystem i, and a
i
is the center-
of-mass velocity of subsystem i. We now sum the 2nd law applications over all subsystems i
to get

F
net
=

F
i,net
=

i
m
i
a
i
= m

i
m
i
a
i
m
= ma
cm
, (15)
where

F
net
is the net force on the system and where we have used the center-of-mass accel-
eration equation (5) from 5.1. Nothing forbids us from doing this.
Nothing also forbids us from summandizingto coin a word analogous to factorizing
the forces on each subsystem into external and internal contributions. Thus,

F
i,net
=

F
i,net,ext
+

F
i,net,int
. (16)
27
The external contribution

F
i,net,ext
is for forces arising from sources outside the system and
the internal contribution

F
i,net,int
is for forces from other subsystems inside the system. Now

F
i,net,int
=

j,j=i

F
ji
, (17)
where

F
ji
is the force of particle j on particle i. And now

F
net
=

F
i,net
=

F
i,net,ext
+

F
i,net,int
=

F
i,net,ext
+

i,j,j=i

F
ji
. (18)
Consider particles k and . By the Newtons 3rd law for particles, we must have

F
k
=

F
k
Thus all the internal forces cancel out pairwise in equation (18). The forces forces internal to
the subsystems themselves also cancel out pairwise. If the 3rd law works for the subsystems,
it works inside them too.
So we nd

F
net
=

F
i,net
=

F
i,net,ext
=

F
net,ext
, (19)
where

F
net,ext
is the net external force on the system. So the net force on the system is the
net external force.
Finally, then

F
net
= ma
cm
(20)
which is just Newtons 2nd law applied to the whole system. We have have recovered
Newtons 2nd law, and so the 2nd law as we have stated it is consistent.
The 1st law is consistent since it is just a special case of the rst law as discussed in
5.3.
What of the 3rd law?
Consider two systems consisting of subsystems for which the 3rd law holds. It holds
28
between all the subsystems and inside each subsystem. The net force of system 1 on system 2

F
12
=

ij

F
ij
, (21)
where subsystem i is in system 1, subsystem j is in system 1, and F
ij
is the force of sub-
system i on subsystem j. Now we make use of the 3rd law between the subsystems to
nd

F
12
=

ij

F
ij
=

ij

F
ji
=

F
21
, (22)
where we recognized that the sum of subsystem forces of system 2 on system 1 is the force
of system 2 on system 1 (i.e.,

F
21
). Thus,

F
21
=

F
12
, (23)
and the 3rd law holds between the systems if it holds between the subsystems. So the 3rd
law in our statement of it is consistent since it should hold between the systems to be valid.
Now just one more thing.
If we had assumed Newtons three laws for point-mass particles, we could have used
derivations like those above to derive the laws for systems of particles. But I always nd
that unsatisfying since classical point-mass particles dont exist, except as idealizations. On
the other hand, it is a convenient way of understanding things at times.
In fact, taking Newtons three laws for systems as axioms of Newtonian physics, the
three laws for point-mass particles follows as a special ideal case where ideal point-mass
particles are assumed to exist.
5.7. Non-Center-of-Mass Motion
We should emphasize that the center-of mass 2nd law equation (8)

F
net
= ma
cm
tells us
nothing about the internal motions of the system.
29
Any general internal motion is allowed subject to the contraint on the center-of-mass
motion. For example, the system could be rotating and/or oscillating in some complex way.
It takes a more detailed analysis of the system to understand the internal motions.
In general, we would need to analyze the position of application of external forces on
the system and the internal forces to understand all the motions of a system.
In general, such an analysis would be immensely dicult.
So we wont ever try anything immensely dicult.
But we will treat some systems where the internal motions are analyzed.
For example, systems consisting of an ideal rope with attached masses in 11. We will
get some more experience with multiple particle systems in later lectures.
For example, in the lecture Rotational Dynamics, we will consider the rotational motion
of a rigid body about a single xed axis.
5.8. Separation of Center-of-Mass Motion and Internal Motions
The 2nd law equation (8)

F
net
= ma
cm
actually suggests greater simplicity than is the
case.
Even if we dont analyze internal motions, which external forces act on a system will in
general depend on the structure of the system and its orientation in space.
For a simple example, throw a ruler at a bar. Whether the ruler hits the bar or not
depends on the relative orientation of bar and ruler in general. Thus, whether the bar exerts
an external force on the ruler is dependent on the rulers structure and the time evolution
of that structure.
30
So, in fact, Newtons 2nd law does not really allow a complete separation of the center-
of-mass motion and the internal motions.
But in may examples, the internal motions that aect the center-of-mass motions are
easily handled. Usually, the idealized setup of an example just ignores such complications.
For example, in simple examples of pushing a block across a frictionless horizontal surface
with a constant force, we never specify where the force acts on the block or if the block is
rotating. We usually implicitly assume the is not rotating. In fact, unless we push it in just
the right way, it would rotate. Everyday life experience tells us this without deep analysis.
5.8.1. Units of Force
Since equation (8) is exact in classical physics, it gives the exact relation between the
units of force and the units of mass and acceleration. The units of force are
unit[F] = unit[ma] = kg m/s
2
, (24)
where unit[ ] is my own idiosyncratic unit function. The unit of force is a derived unit: it is
dened exactly in terms of the base units of kilogram, meter, and second.
The unit of force is given its own name special name and symbol. These are, respec-
tively, newton and N. Thus,
N = kg m/s
2
. (25)
It turns out that for everyday purposes, the newton is a bit small. Its only about 1/5
or 1/4 of a pound (the US customary unit of force with abbreviation lb). Unfortunately, the
newton straddles the line between being 1/5 and 1/4 of a pound and which you use depends
on how you round: I round to 1/5. We have the following relationships with the pound:
1 N 0.22481 lb 0.2 lb , (26)
31
1 lb = 4.4482216152605 N 4 N , (27)
where 1 lb = 4.4482216152605 N is exact in the modern denition of the pound.
Actually, in some contexts, the newton seldom appears explicitly. One just uses MKS
units and the unit force is the MKS unit of force without bothering to name it.
But in intro physics, we use the newton all the time.
6. CALCULATING CENTER OF MASS
In this section, we will just give some examples of calculations of centers of mass.
6.1. Example: Particles on a Line
Say we have three particles on the x axis: 1 at x
1
= 1 with mass m
1
= 1, 2 at x
2
= 2
with mass m
2
= 2, and 3 at x
3
= 3 with mass m
3
= 3.
The x coordinate center of mass is
x
cm
=

i
m
i
x
i
m
=
1
2
+ 2
2
+ 3
3
1 + 2 + 3
=
14
6
2.333 . (28)
The simple average position of the particles is, of course,
x
ave

i
x
i

i
1
=
1 + 2 + 3
3
= 2 . (29)
The greater mass of particle 3 drives the center of mass position closer to particle 3 than
the simple average position.
Since the particles are points on the x axis, their center-of-mass y and z positions are
both zero.
32
6.2. Example: Systems Symmetric in Three Dimensions
Say you have system that is symmetric in three dimensions about some geometric center:
e.g., a uniform density sphere, cube, or cylinder.
Where would you guess the center of mass had to be?
Right.
At the geometric center.
Anything else would break the symmetry and there is nothing in the systems to break
the symmetry.
But one can give a concrete proof too.
Make the GEOMETRIC CENTER the origin.
Consider two mass elements: element i and element i

. One is centered at r
i
with mass
m
i
and the other is centered at r
i
= r
i
with mass m
i
.
You can imagine the two elements as cubes of equal volume. The cubes must have the
same mass (i.e., m
i
= m
i
) by the symmetry of the system.
You tile the whole system with such symmetrically placed cubes.
You now solve for the center of mass. Often this means doing an integral where one
takes the limit that the cubes become innitesimal in size and innite in number. In adding
up the contributions to the center of mass, the contributions of each pair of cubes cancels
out pairwise. This is because
m
i
r
i
+ m
i
r
i
= m
i
r
i
m
i
r
i
= 0 . (30)
Since all the contributions come in pairs, the center of mass vector is the zero vector:
33
i.e., center of mass location is at the origin which is the GEOMETRIC CENTERas
weve already guessed it had to be.
Question: Where is the center of mass of a hula hoop?
a) At the center.
b) Nowhere since the center is empty space.
c) At the left end of the hula hoop.
Yes, its (a). The center of mass does NOT have to be in the material object.
If I tossed hula hoop right now, it would probably rotate around the center of mass in some
fashion (e.g., about the symmetry axis or perpendicular to it or both) depending on how I
threw it. But the center of mass at the geometric center would follow a parabolic trajectory
if air resistance is negligible.
6.3. Example: An Irregular Rigid Object
Consider an irregular rigid object.
How does one nd its center of mass?
Well one could work very hard and do a numerical calculation.
One could guess.
With some experience, the guess might not be so bad.
But there is a simple empirical means to nd the center of mass.
Hang the object from a free pivot point and let it come to rest.
34
The center of mass must be below the pivot pointwhich we wont prove here. Thus,
there is a line from the pivot point that passes through the center of mass.
Now hang the object from another free pivot point.
Again center of mass must be below the pivot point. Thus, there is another line from
the pivot point that passes through the center of mass.
Where those two lines (taken as xed to the object) intersect is the center of mass.
The proof of this method we leave to the lecture Rotational Dynamics.
6.4. Example: A Non-Rigid System
For a non-rigid system (e.g., a squishy system, exible system, uid system), the center
of mass location relative to any part of the system is general variable.
So calculating where the center of mass located relative to all the parts of the system is
in general tough.
But take a ragged old sweater for example and toss it. With negligible air resistance,
the center of mass follows a parabolic trajectory no matter what the parts are doing. What
the parts are doing in detail involves a complex calculationwhich we will never do in this
class.
7. FREE BODY DIAGRAMS AND SIMPLE EXAMPLES USING
NEWTONS THREE LAWS
In this section, we do some simple examples using using Newtons three laws of motion.
These examples are all without force laws. We just assume forces. In 9 and following
35
sections, we introduce some important force laws that allow the analysis of the motions of
many systems.
Before we turn to our examples, rst well introduce a useful diagram for analyzing
systems to which Newtons laws are appliedthe free body diagram.
7.0.1. Free Body Diagrams
Free body diagrams are often helpful in analyzing simple force problems.
On a purists free body diagram, the body is represented by a point at the center and
the forces that act on the body are drawn. No axes or components of the forces are drawn.
Dont draw the forces the body exerts. That tends to create a mess of seemingly
canceling forces.
Those of us who are less than pure often draw the object schematically and add axes.
However impure, these additions are often mentally helpful.
An example helps to see the how free body diagrams are useful in analyzing force
problems.
7.0.2. Example: Hockey Puck on Ice
We have a hockey puck on a horizontal plane of frictionless ice.
In the vertical direction there is no net force and no motion.
Thus, the problem is entirely in the two dimensional world horizontal plane of ice. We
setup a set of the usual Cartesian x-y axes on the plane.
36
The puck has mass 0.30 kg and two forces act on it.
Force 1 has magnitude 5.0 N and points at 20

from the x axis. Remember we con-

ventionally measure angle counterclockwise positive from the x axis.
Force 2 has magnitude 8.0 N and points at 60

from the x axis.

What is the acceleration of the puck?
Figure 1 is an impure free body diagram for the system.
To nd the acceleration, we should nd the components of the acceleration.
To nd the components of the acceleration, we need to nd the components of the forces
and sum them to nd the net force components.
Behold:
F
x
= F
1
cos
1
+ F
2
cos
2
= 8.698
a
x
=
F
x
m
= 28.99
F
y
= F
1
sin
1
+ F
2
sin
2
= 5.218
a
y
=
F
y
m
= 17.39
a =
_
a
2
x
+ a
2
y
= 34 m/s
2
= tan
1
_
a
y
a
x
_
= 31

, (31)
where we have used only MKS units, and so dont need to keep track of them explicitly and
where we only round o to signicant gures in the last two expressions.
8. NEWTONS THREE LAWS OF MOTION AND INERTIAL FRAMES
Newtons three laws are inertial-frame invariant. This means that they have the same
form in any inertial frame and can be applied in the same way in any inertial frame.
37
As well as having the same form, the values of the quantities that enter the three laws
are inertial-frame invariant: force, mass, and acceleration. Note that the components of the
force and acceleration vectors do vary with frames in general, but they themselves dont: i.e.,
their magnitudes and directions. If one changes the orientation of the axes, the components
of force and acceleration must change.
The invariance of Newtons three laws is part of their statements actually as we have
mentioned in 5.2, 5.3, and 5.4.
Lets explicate what we mean for force, mass, and acceleration in turn.
The 2nd law includes that the net force on a system is frame invariant in general,
and so the net force is inertial-frame independent. Since the net force can be any force,
the any force must be frame invariant. In relativistic physics (e.g., Lawden 2002, p. 44)
and therefore in reality, force does depend on reference frame, but in the classical limit the
frame dependence is negligble. The classical frame independence is unlike the behavior of
displacement, velocity, and acceleration which obviously are frame dependent. The frame
independence of forces is actually clear for those forces between systems that just depend on
relative positions and relative velocities of the systems. The relative positions and velocities
of systems are independent of frame of reference. The situation is bit complex for forces
on systems caused by electromagnetic elds since the relative amounts of electric force and
magnetic force in the net electromagnetic force are frame dependent, but not the force itself
in the classical limit. There may be other complex situations.
But the bottom line is that in Newtonian physics forces are frame independent. No
matter what frame of reference you use to evaluate them from force laws, you always get the
same forces. The components are frame dependent as mentioned above.
What of mass independence. Part of the statement of the 2ns law actually. In fact, in
38
relativistic physics (which means in reality) mass is frame dependent. But in the classical
limit, the frame dependence is negligibly week. Since mass is a scalar and specied by a
single value, that value is frame independent.
Now displacement, velocity, and acceleration are all frame dependent in general. Say
we had frames 1 and2 where r
12
is the displacement vector from the origin of frame 1 to the
origin of frame 2. Just Euclidean geometry tells us the that position of particle in frame 1
r
1
is related to that in frame 2 by
r
1
= r
2
+ r
12
. (32)
Dierentiating with respect to time, we nd that the transformations between the frames
for displacement, velocity, and acceleration are
r
1
= r
2
+ r
12
, (33)
v
1
= v
2
+ v
12
, (34)
a
1
= a
2
+ a
12
. (35)
These relationships are actually Galilean transformations of the quantities.
It turns out that the Galilean transformations are only valid in the classical limit where
relative velocities are small compared to the vacuum light speed and gravity elds relatively
weak. The correct transformations for relativistic speeds are the Lorentz transformations.
The key dierence is that for the Galilean transformations one assumes that time ow and
length are reference frame invariant. We did this implicitly, in the derivation of transfor-
mations above. As mentioned in 2, Newton himself wondered if the time ow had to be
frame invariant, but it was the simplest hypothesis that it was and nothing people knew until
end of the 19th century caused any doubt. In 8.1 we discuss the Galilean transformations
further.
39
Note some folks restrict the meaning of Galilean transformations to the case where there
is no acceleration between the frames.
If we restrict ourselves to inertial frames which are unaccelerated with respect to each
other, equations (35) reduce to
r
1
= r
2
+ r
12
, (36)
v
1
= v
2
+ v
12
, (37)
a
1
= a
2
. (38)
So acceleration is inertial-frame invariant.
Given the above assumptions about inertial-frame invariance of the force, mass, and
acceleration, it follows that Newtons three laws of motion are inertial frame invariant just
as we said above.
Actually, the inertial-frame invariance of Newtons laws is part of their statements. So
really the laws imply the force, mass, and acceleration are inertial-frame
What does inertial-frame invariance mean?
Well many things, but TWO important consequences come to mind rst of all.
FIRST, for a given system, frame 1 and frame 2 observers would calculate the same
acceleration and calculate velocity and position that dier only by some calculable additional
terms.
To see this say a frame 2 observer (i.e., an observer who uses frame 2 as the frame of
reference for calculations) calculates motions for a system using known forces and the 2nd
law, and nds a
2
, v
2
, and r
2
. Now a frame 1 observer (i.e., an observer who uses frame 1
as the frame of reference for calculations) calculates motions for a system using known same
forces and the 2nd law, and nds a
1
, v
1
, and r
1
.
40
Fig. 1. A free body diagram for a hockey puck acted on by two forces in the horizontal
plane.
Fig. 2. Position in inertial frames 1 and 2.
41
Well a
1
= a
2
according to the 2nd lawwhich is indeed true.
What are the relationships between v
2
, and r
2
. and v
1
, and r
1
?
Integrating a
12
= 0, we nd
v
12
= v
12,0
and
r
12
= v
12,0
t + r
12,0
, (39)
where the subscript zero indicates time zero values. Thus, the relationships are
r
1
= r
2
+ v
12,0
t + r
12,0
,
v
1
= v
2
+ v
12,0
,
a
1
= a
2
. (40)
These predictions, of course, are veried since Newtons 2nd law is well veried.
Frequently, the origins of the two frames related by equations (40) are chosen to be at
the same point and time zero. This means that r
12,0
= 0.
The SECOND consequence of the inertial-frame independence of the 2nd law is that
identical particle trajectories relative dierent inertial frames are obtained for identical con-
ditions in those frames.
Consider a system in an inertial frame in which all the forces are specied and the initial
velocity v
0
and position of the particle r
0
are also specied.
Since the forces are fully specied, the 2nd law gives us a(t) for all times. Thus, the
velocity for all times t 0 is given by integral
v(t) =
_
t
0
a(t

) dt

+v
0
. (41)
The acceleration we know at all times using the 2nd law and fully specied forces. Remember
than integration is just the adding up in a calculus sense the values of the integrand times
42
dierential of the integration variable: in the present case, we are adding up a(t

) dt

to get a
nite change in velocity. We are not actually going to do the integral, but are merely showing
that it can be done in principle. Integrals can be done by antidierentiation making use of
the fundamental theorem of calculus (e.g., Wikipedia: Fundamental theorem of calculus) or
numerically where actually adds up a(t

)t

for small changes in time t

.
The trajectory of the particle for t 0 is fully specied by the integrals
r(t) =
_
t
0
v(t

) dt

+v
0
t +r
0
=
_
t
0
_
t

0
a(t

) dt

dt

+v
0
t +r
0
, (42)
where the latter expression is obtained by double integration of the acceleration. We are not
going to do these integrals either, but again are merely showing that they can be done in
principle.
Since the 2nd law is valid in all inertial frames, the trajectory r(t) and all other measures
of motion are the same in all inertial frames relative to those inertial frames. Transforming
to other inertial frames gives rise to the additional terms for displacement and velocity like
those we considered above.
Thus identical conditions relative to dierent inertial frames leads to identical motions
relative to those inertial frames.
This sounds a bit abstract, but your whole life experience conrms it.
Play catch on the ground and play catch in a unaccelerated train and everything behaves
the same way. (Both frames are inertial to high accuracy.)
Youd be shocked if it didnt.
On the other hand, throw a ball on a playground merry-go-round (which is a rotating
frame and therefore a non-inertial frame) and the ball follows a curved path in the horizontal
direction relative to the merry-go-round frame. Throwing in an identical manner in an
43
inertial frame and the ball follows a straight-line path. All the conditions relative to the
frames are the same, but you get dierent outcomes. The merry-go-round frame is not an
inertial frame, and so there is no violation of Newtons 2nd law. Note that and relative
to the ground (which is an inertial frame to high accuracy) the horizontal path of the ball
thrown on the merry-go-round is a straight line.
The above example leads to the general conclusion that in non-inertial frames there can
be accelerations without net forces. We take up the subject of accelerations in non-inertial
frames in 14.
8.1. Inertial Frames and Physical Law: Optional
It is an axiom of physics, Newtonian and modern, that physical laws should have the
same formulae in all inertial frames. In physics jargon terms, the formulae should be invariant
under transformations between inertial frames.
The inertial-frame-invariance axiom means that the identical setups in inertial frames
lead to identical results in those inertial frames.
Newtons 2nd law obeys this axiom as we saw in 8 and so does Newtonian physics in
general. But this obedience is based on the assumption of the Galilean transformations for
quantities in going from one frame to another. The Galilean transformations assume that
forces are frame invariant and the kinematic variables (i.e., displacement, velocity, and ac-
celeration) dier between frames only by additive terms which are the relative displacement,
velocity, and acceleration between the frames. The Galilean transformations also assume
that time ows the same in all frames of reference and that length is a frame invariant
quantity.
Both the inertial-frame-invariance axiom and assumption of the Galilean transforma-
44
tions seemed perfectly natural from the time of Newton to circa 1905.
But there was a paradox.
Classical electromagnetism formulated in the 1860s by James Clerk Maxwell (1831 to
1879) was NOT invariant under transformations between inertial frames. It was thought
that this meant there was some error in classical electromagnetism or that it was only valid
in the rest frame of a medium called the luminiferous ether. The luminiferous ether was the
medium of electromagnetic (light) wave propagation. Ordinary mechanical waves propagate
in media, it seemed reasonable that light waves should too. But the luminiferous ether
seemed to have no properties other than satisfying the demand for medium for light wave
propagation. You couldnt touch it or see it or anything. That lack of other properties
seemed odd.
Now classical electromagnetism turned out to be so accurate and the luminiferous ether
so hard to nd that questions about the status of both things were raised.
The situation was claried in 1905 when Albert Einstein (18791955) introduced special
relativity.
In special relativity, the transformations between inertial frames are NOT the Galilean
transformations, but the Lorentz transformations. We will not present the Lorentz trans-
formations here. But the Lorentz transformations lead to the results that time ows dif-
ferently in dierent inertial frames and that length is a frame dependent quantity. Both
these relativistic eects are very strange in our everyday life understanding of things. In
fact, relativistic eects in general are small for everyday speeds and only become signicant
when relative speeds approaching the vacuum speed of light are important. This is why we
never notice them in everyday life and why science didnt begin to to notice them before the
1880s. The Lorentz transformations reduce to the Galilean transformations in the classical
45
limit of relative velocities much less than the vacuum light speed.
Under the Lorentz transformations, classical electromagnetism obeys the inertial-frame-
invariance axiom.
But Newtonian physics doesntexcept in the classical limit of the Lorentz transforma-
tions (i.e., when they reduce to the Galilean transformations).
So Newtonian physics was NOT exactly right. It is only the low velocity limit of
special relativistic physics. Other limitations on Newtonian physics soon appeared in the
20th century. But as discussed in the lecture INTRODUCTION TO INTRODUCTORY
PHYSICS and 2, Newtonian physics remains the valid and useful in the classical realm.
9. GRAVITY NEAR THE EARTHS SURFACE
As discussed in 5.5, Newtons three laws of motion would be of limited use if there
was no way to calculate forces independently of the three laws.
One needs force laws that give you force in terms of other physical variables.
Gravity has one of the best examples of a force law.
The general gravitational force law is

F = mg , (43)
where m is the mass of a point-mass particle and g is the gravitational eld which in general
is position and time dependent. For a system of particles, the general gravitational force law
is

F =

i
m
i
g
i
, (44)
where the sum is over all the particles i, m
i
is the mass of particle i, and g
i
is the gravitational
eld at the location of particle i and the time evaluation. If the gravitational eld is a
46
constant over the system, then equation (44) yields

F =

i
m
i
g
i
=
_

i
m
i
_
g = mg , (45)
where m is the mass of the system and g is the constant gravitational eld.
The gravitational eld is caused by all the mass in the universe and depends on its
magnitude and arrangement. In general, the gravitational eld is complicated to evaluate,
but it is fairly simple for spherically symmetric bodies. Well investigate the general law for
the gravitational eld in the lecture GRAVITY.
Here we will only give the special case of the law for gravity near the Earths surface:

F = mg( y) , (46)
where m is the system mass, g is the magnitude of the gravitational eld approximated as
a constant and y is a unit vector point pointing upward from the surface. The gravitational
eld near the Earths surface is due to the Earths mass.
The gravitational force points down always in the near Earth context.
The quantity g is also our old friend the acceleration due to gravity when no other forces
are acting. Well prove this in just a minute.
In this course, we usually just take g to have ducial value 9.8 N/kg, where we note that
N/kg = m/s
2
.
We briey discuss the variations in g near the Earths surface in 9.1.
We will now analyze the motion of a body under gravity only.
We only need to consider the vertical direction since there are no forces or motion in
the other directions.
The free body diagram is trivial: see Figure 3.
47
The net force in the y direction is mg. Thus, F = ma becomes
mg = ma (47)
which we solve immediately to get the y direction acceleration
a = g . (48)
Mass has canceled out of the result.
The result is the Galileo result. No matter what the mass, all objects near the Earths
surface accelerate downward with the same constant acceleration of magnitude g to good
approximation when air resistance can be neglected.
This remarkable result originates in the fact that gravity is a force proportional to mass
as equations (43) and (45) show. This leads to the cancellation in of mass in the formula for
acceleration due to gravity.
The appearance of mass in the gravitational force law is independent of its property as
the resistance to acceleration.
Mass in a sense is like the charge of the gravitational force just as positive and negative
charges are the charges of the electric force. There is a major dierence though: mass only
Fig. 3. A free body diagram for a system acted only by gravity near the Earths surface.
48
comes in one charge avor and all mass attracts other mass. There are two avors of electric
charge and like charges repel and unlike charges attract.
In Newtonian physics, the exact equivalence of mass in F = ma (which is called inertial
mass) and mass in the gravitational force law equation (43) (which is called gravitational
mass) is a coincidence. In general relativity, the equivalence of inertial and gravitational
mass is part of the axioms of the theory (e.g., Lawden 2002, p. 128129).
But people have wondered if the equivalence is actually exact. Say inertial mass m
in
and the gravitational mass m
gr
were dierent. Then F = ma would lead to an acceleration
formula
a =
m
gr
m
in
g . (49)
If the gravitational mass depended on the material of the object, then the acceleration due
to gravity would vary. Many careful experiments have found no such variation. For the time
being, the equivalence of inertial mass and gravitational mass seems well founded.
9.1. Variations in g: Optional
The gravitational eld magnitude g is actually not constant near the Earths surface.
First of all, g varies with latitude from 9.789 N/kg at the equator to 9.832 N/kg at the
poles. The main cause of variation is that the centrifugal force is for practical convenience
combined with the actual gravity force in calculating g and the centrifugal force depends on
the varying velocity of the Earths surface as the Earth rotates. Well discuss the centrifugal
force in the lecture NEWTONIAN PHYSICS II. Another cause in variation is the varying
radius of the Earth.
As well as variations with latitude, g decreases with altitude and there are local varia-
tions due to variations in the mass structure of the Earth.
49
All the variations in g are below human perception since they are only range over about
0.5 % of the mean g value. But the variations are quite measurable and are important in
geology.
The ocial mean standard value of g is 9.80665 N/kg.
But for educational purposes, it seems best to adopt the more memorable ducial value
9.8 N/kg for almost all calculations and this is what we do.
10. NORMAL FORCE
The normal force is the component perpendicular to a surface that the contact force of
the surface exerts to resist compression. The normal force points outward from the surface.
Normal in this context means perpendicular.
One usually only thinks of normal force for solid surfaces. For uid surfaces, one thinks
of pressure and surface tension forces.
The normal force is actually an elastic force. The normal force can in principle be
calculated from the elastic properties of the material and the degree of compression the
surface undergoes.
But that is too hard for intro physics courses.
In intro physics courses, we only consider the ideal contact force for an ideal solid surface.
An ideal surface is perfectly rigid and the only force that resists compression is the
normal force. There is no anticompression force parallel to the surface. Friction is the only
contact force parallel to the surface that we will consider.
Because the surface is perfectly rigid, we have NO intrinsic formula for the (ideal)
50
normal force.
We know it only turns on to resist compression and is always outward from the surface.
It never attracts. One can, of course, invoke attractive sticky forces on a surface, but those
are not the normal force.
Without an intrinsic formula for the normal force, intro physics can only nd out what
it is from the 2nd and 3rd laws.
10.1. Normal Force from the 2nd Law
Consider an object in contact with an ideal surface.
Lets just consider the direction perpendicular to the surface with the outward direction
being positive. The system is 1-dimensional.
From the 2nd law, we know that
F
net
= ma (50)
for the object where we have dropped the vector symbols since the system is one dimensional.
Lets summandize the net force into the normal force F
nor
and other forces F
oth
. Thus,
F
net
= F
nor
+ F
oth
. (51)
If we solve for F
nor
assuming all other quantities are known, we get
F
nor
= ma F
oth
. (52)
Everything is consistent if F
nor
0 and we have obtained the true value from the 2nd
law.
51
Question: What if F
nor
< 0 (i.e., the normal force points into the surface)?
a) Weve used wrong values for ma F
oth
.
b) There must be some unidentied force that attracts to the surface that is
greater in magnitude than the normal force.
Either (a) or (b) can be right.
As an example of determining a normal force from the 2nd law, consider a toaster sitting
on a table. The free body diagram is in Figure 4.
There is no acceleration of the toaster and in the vertical direction, only the normal
force and the gravitational force act. The 2nd law in the vertical direction gives.
F
y,net
= F
nor
mg = ma
y
= 0 , (53)
where m is the toaster mass.
We nd then
F
nor
= mg . (54)
The normal force on the toaster in this case is equal in magnitude to the gravitational force
and points upward.
Fig. 4. Toaster at rest on a table.
52
10.2. Normal Force from the 3rd Law
This is a very trivial case.
If one exerts an applied force

F
app
into a surface, by the third law one nd the normal
force is

F
nor
=

F
app
. (55)
What if

F
app
is actually outward from the surface?
Well if you are succeeding in applying an outward force, there must be an inward force
being exerted on the applier by the surface, but its NOT the normal force.
10.3. Object on an Inclined Plane
There is an object on an inclined plane. The plane is at angle from the horizontal.
The free body diagram is in Figure 5.
The object cannot push into the plane. Its an ideal rigid surface.
We let the y direction be normal to the plane and increase outward.
Fig. 5. Object on an inclined plane.
53
We let the x direction be parallel to the plane and point down the slope.
From 5.3, remember the class mantra:
Newtons 2nd law is always true and its always true component by component.
Now we apply the 2nd law to the y and x directions for the object.
There can be no motion in the y direction. The normal force completely resists negative
motion in the y direction since the surface is an ideal rigid surface. But the normal force
turns o if the object marginally leaves the surface. In this case, gravity pulls the object
right back to the surface if it marginally lifts o through any perturbation. Since there is
no motion in the y direction, there is no acceleration in the y direction. Thus, the 2nd law
gives
F
nor
+ F
y,grav
= F
nor
mg cos = 0 , (56)
where F
nor
is the normal force which only has a component in the y direction and F
y,grav
=
mg cos is the component of gravity in the direction.
Thus, from the 2nd law, we nd the
F
nor
= mg cos (57)
which means that the normal force magnitude equals the magnitude of the gravity component
in the y direction.
In the x direction where only x component of gravity can act, we nd
F
y,grav
= mg sin = ma , (58)
where a is the acceleration down the slope. We nd that
a = g sin . (59)
54
Remarkably the acceleration is mass independent. This always happens when only
gravity acts to accelerate an object. The mass cancels out of F = ma since gravity is a
linearly dependent on mass.
Say = 30

. Then
a = g sin = 9.8
1
2
= 4.9 m/s
2
, (60)
where we have used our ducial value g = 9.8 m/s
2
.
Say the object starts from rest and slides for 10 s. How far does it go? From the
appropriate constant-acceleration kinematic equation, we nd
x =
1
2
(g sin )t
2
= 245 m . (61)
11. TENSION FORCE AND TENSION
Tension force is the force that resists expansion of a system.
Usually one thinks of solids as having tension forces, but liquids also have a tension
force called surface tension (Wikipedia: Surface tension).
We are NOT going to be general.
Well just consider tension forces in ropes.
Ropes have been technologically important since prehistory because they can be used
to TRANSMIT forces over distances and around corners.
The transmission is done by the tension forces in the ropes.
Note we say in not of although a rope does exert tension forces on external objects.
But there are also internal tension forces that have to be considered. We cannot treat ropes
as point masses since their shape is important in our analysis.
55
Say we draw an imaginary cut line through a rope at some point. The tension force one
side of the cut line pulls on the other side and vice versa. These tension forces are equal by
the 3rd law.
The magnitude of the tension forces at any point along the rope is is called the tension
(Wikipedia: Tension (physics)).
We will usually only consider the ideal rope (AKA an ideal cord, string, cable, or chain).
The ideal rope has zero thickness and usually zero mass. Sometimes we will add mass
for a bit more generality or in order to understand the physically correct limiting behavior
of massless ideal ropes.
The ideal rope resists no forces, except for those that try to stretch it.
You cant push on a rope.
Well you cant push on an ideal rope.
If there are no applied forces, the rope has no tension: i.e., the tension forces are zero
everywhere in it, the tension is a constant zero, and the rope can be put in an arbitrary
shapeits oppy. If a rope has tension it is usually said to be under tension or taut.
The ideal rope resists stretching completely (i.e., it never stretches) and often never
breaks. We will sometimes let our ideal ropes break.
By the 3rd law, the tension force at the point of application is equal and opposite an
applied stretching force.
Just as for the normal force of an ideal rigid surface, we have no intrinsic formula for
the tension forces in an ideal rope.
We have to use the 2nd and 3rd laws to nd them. In real ropes, the elastic properties
56
allow the tension forces to be calculate from the deformations of the ropes in principle though
not necessarily easily.
Now wait a doggone moment. How can you apply the 2nd law to a massless rope. The
acceleration becomes undened doesnt it?
Without other ingredients, it is undened.
The ingredient we add is that the rope is part of a larger system with overall mass that
completely determines its motion. The system acceleration or accelerations are determined
by F = ma and these determine the acceleration or accelerations of the ideal rope. The net
force on the rope itself is zero. The ideal rope behavior one gets is the correct limit for a real
ropes mass going to zero. Examples illustrate how the ropes acceleration or accelerations
are determined.
Real ropes approximate ideal ropes to some degree.
Studying ideal ropes gives us insight into how real ropes behave and gives us approxi-
mately correct results.
11.1. Tension in an Ideal Rope
After wrestling with my rational conscienceand winningIve decided not to derive a
couple of ideal rope results, but just present them which is what most textbooks do. Those
textbooks usually implicitly present the results as obviousbut I dont think so. Ive given
derivations in Appendix A which is an optional reading.
Say that you have a taut ideal rope. Its a massless ideal rope. It can be straight or
looped about curved surfaces: e.g., a pulley. Let s be a length coordinate along the rope.
The fact that the rope is taut immediately implies that external forces are applied to it.
57
Now for the rst result.
The normal force per unit length exerted by the curved surface on the rope at any
general point s is
f
nor
=
T
r
, (62)
where T is the tension at point s r is the radius of curvature at s, and the normal force per
unit length points radially outward from the center of curvature. The center of curvature
is the center of a circle that approximates the curve at s to rst order. The normal force
per unit length exerted by the rope on the curved surface is equal in magnitude to f
nor
, but
points radially inward by the 3rd law.
Note that if T goes to zero or r goes to innity, then f
nor
goes to zero. A straight ideal
rope has no normal force on it and doesnt exert a normal force.
The fact that a rope can exert a normal force is consistent with everything you know.
After all you can pull on something with a loop of rope even if the rope exerts vanishingly
small forces (such as the friction force) along its length.
Now for the second result.
The tension at any point s along the rope is given by
T = T
0
F
par
(s) , (63)
where T
0
is the tension at the start of the rope at s = 0 and F
par
is the integrated applied
parallel force per unit length along the rope from the start to s. By the 3rd law, T
0
equals
the magnitude of the applied force at the start of this rope. This applied force at the start
of the rope is antiparallel to the ducial direction of s along the rope. It must be to keep
the rope taut. The integrated applied parallel force per unit length along the rope from the
start to s is given by
F
par
(s) =
_
s
0
f
par
(s

) ds

, (64)
58
where f
par
(s) it the force per unit length parallel to the rope pointing the ducial direction
of s along the rope.
Interpreting equation (63) isnt so hard.
Say F
par
(s) is zero everywhere. Then the tension is constant and equal to T
0
. This
means that at the end of the rope the tension is T
0
. To keep the rope taut the applied force
at the end must have magnitude T
0
and be parallel to the ducial direction.
Consequently a taut ideal rope transmits a force of magnitude T
0
from the start to the
end if no parallel forces are ever applied to it.
What if F
par
(s) = 0?
The tension varies. Positive F
par
(s) means the tension is lower than T
0
. This just means
that the applied force along the rope cancels some of the force applied at the start of the
rope and the tension is reduced at s. Negative F
par
(s) means the tension is higher than T
0
.
This just means that some of the applied force along the rope adds to the force applied at
the start of the rope and the tension is increased at s to maintain the balance of forces.
Actually, all the external forces on the rope cancel. The rope (which is massless recall)
can still be accelerated, but its acceleration is determined by the system that the rope is
part of which has mass.
In our examples, we will usually assume F
par
(s) is zero everywhere for simplicity.
You may ask can tension go negative?
Yes, but then the rope is being compressed rather than stretched. To keep the rope
from extreme buckling, one would have to conne it to narrow pipe.
59
11.2. Example: Rope Holding an Object
There is an object of mass m held from the ceiling by a rope. Nothing is moving.
There are no forces in the x direction, and so a
x
= 0 which we already knew since
nothing is movingnu said as the comic books use to say.
In the y direction, F = ma gives
T mg = ma
y
= 0 , (65)
where T is the tension force, mg is the gravity force, and a
y
= 0 since we know everything
is motionless.
So the 2nd law tells us that
T = mg . (66)
11.3. Example: Rope Pulling a Block
A rope is pulling a block on frictionless oor. The rope is horizontal.
In the y direction, we have
F
nor
mg = ma
y
. (67)
Since there is no motion in the y direction, a
y
= 0 which implies that
F
nor
= mg . (68)
In the x direction, the only force acting is the rope. Applying F = ma gives
T = ma
x
, (69)
where T is the tension force component in the x direction and also the tension since the rope
is horizontal.
60
Say that we measure the tension somehow. Maybe with a sh scale. We can then solve
for a
x
. It is
a
x
=
T
m
. (70)
11.4. Example: Three Ropes Meet
Two ropes are attached to a ceiling: rope 1 that is at angle
1
from the vertical and
rope 2 that is at angle
2
to the vertical.
The two ropes join and a third rope that hangs down is attached at the joint. An object
of mass m is attached to rope 3. All the ropes are tautyou cant push on a rope.
The situation is in static equilibrium: i.e., nothing is moving.
Find the tensions in the ropes.
Well using the 2nd law
T
3
= mg . (71)
That was easy because it was a 1-dimensional problem.
To keep the joint from moving, the net force on it must be zero. The ropes are ideal,
and so have no mass and neither does the joint. The proper mass-going-to-zero limit given
that everything is static is that the net forces on every bit of the ideal rope and joint are
zero.
From 5.3, remember the class mantra:
Newtons 2nd law is always true and its always true component by component.
61
We apply the 2nd law in the x and y directions to the joint:

i
F
x,i
= T
1
sin
1
+ T
2
sin
2
= 0 , (72)

i
F
y,i
= T
1
cos
1
+ T
2
cos
2
T
3
= 0 , (73)
where weve taken the positive x direction as direction of rope 2.
We have two unknowns T
1
and T
2
in two equations. In principle, we can solve for the
unknowns. The only question is what is the most elegant way.
Well
T
1
+ T
2
sin
2
sin
1
= 0
T
1
+ T
2
cos
2
cos
1
=
T
3
cos
1
then add to get
T
2
_
sin
2
sin
1
+
cos
2
cos
1
_
=
T
3
cos
1
T
2
=
T
3
/ cos
1
sin
2
/ sin
1
+ cos
2
/ cos
1
T
2
=
T
3
sin
1
sin
2
cos
1
+ cos
2
sin
1
T
2
=
T
3
sin
1
sin(
1
+
2
)
. (74)
Now
T
1
= T
2
sin
2
sin
1
=
T
3
sin
2
sin(
1
+
2
)
. (75)
So the nal analytic solutions are
T
1
=
mg sin
2
sin(
1
+
2
)
, (76)
T
2
=
mg sin
1
sin(
1
+
2
)
, (77)
T
3
= mg . (78)
62
Say, mg = 122 N,
1
= 53

,
2
= 37

, then
T
1
= 73.4 N , (79)
T
2
= 97.4 N , (80)
T
3
= 122 N . (81)
11.5. Example: Double-Incline-Pulley System
You have double incline: i.e., a 2-dimensional pyramid. The inclines are frictionless.
Incline 1 is at angle
1
from the horizontal. A mass m
1
is on the incline.
Incline 2 is at angle
2
from the horizontal. A mass m
2
is on the incline.
The masses are joined by a taut ideal rope that runs parallel to the inclines and is
looped over an ideal pulley. The rope and pulley have a no-slip condition between them:
i.e., theres no slippage between them. But the rope exerts no force on the pulley and the
pulley none on the rope. This means that the rope tension is constant throughout its length.
The ideal pulley has no mass and accelerates with zero applied force maintaining the no-slip
condition.
The system is a not a system that can be treated as a single particle. But its not so
complex.
We want to solve for the acceleration components of the masses along the inclines.
We need to set some conventions.
We give each mass its own coordinate system. Experience tells us this is the good way.
We take up incline as the positive x direction for m
1
and down the incline as the positive
direction for m
2
.
63
Since rope is taut, the we have a
1
= a
2
. Lets just call this value a for short.
Note the acceleration vectors are NOT equal since they are dierent directions, but the
size of their x components in their own separate coordinate systems are equal because of the
setup.
There is no motion in the y directions, and so we can forget about those.
In the x directions, we have the following applications of F = maor as we often say
in physics jargonthe following equations of motion:
T m
1
g sin
1
= m
1
a , (82)
m
2
g sin
2
T = m
2
a , (83)
where the tension in both branchs of the rope is the same because it and the pulley are ideal.
The expression of equations of motion are used in various ways. I usually use it to
mean particular applications of F = ma.
Now we have two equations in two unknowns a and T.
The clever way to solve for a is to add the equations of motion since this cancels out
the unknown tension.
We get
m
2
g sin
2
m
1
g sin
1
T = (m
1
+ m
2
)a (84)
which gives
a = g
_
m
2
sin
2
m
1
sin
1
m
1
+ m
2
_
. (85)
Note that the acceleration can be positive, zero, or negative depending on the sizes of
m
2
g sin
2
and m
1
g sin
1
.
But which way the objects are sliding depends not only on acceleration, but on initial
64
conditions. The objects could have a positive velocity for a negative acceleration or vice
versa.
What about the T? Divide equations (83) and (83) by the masses, subtract the second
from the rst, collect like terms in T, and solve for T. One gets
T =
g(sin
1
+ sin
2
)
1/m
1
+ 1/m
2
=
gm
1
m
2
(sin
1
+ sin
2
)
m
1
+ m
2
. (86)
The collected solution is
a = g
m
2
sin
2
m
1
sin
1
m
1
+ m
2
(87)
T =
gm
1
m
2
(sin
1
+ sin
2
)
m
1
+ m
2
. (88)
Actually, all kinds of special cases for a and T can be derived from equation (88).
The simplest is the case where there are no inclines: i.e.,
1
= 0 and
2
= 0. In this
case, a = 0 (nothing is moving) and T = 0 (nothing is being pulled).
If
1
= 90

and
2
= 90

, then the system reduces to Atwoods machine. Here we have

the solutions
a = g
m
2
m
1
m
1
+ m
2
(89)
T =
2gm
1
m
2
m
1
+ m
2
. (90)
George Atwood (17451807) invented is eponymous machine in 1784. The device as
technological machine has been known since prehistory. But Atwoods idea was to use it
to study the laws of motion. With Atwoods machine one can observe nearly constant
accelerations that are arbitrarily small since the mass dierence m
2
m
1
can be made
arbitrarily small.
Of course, real pulleys have some mass and including this changes the equations of mo-
tion. One can nd those changes using rotational dynamics (see the lecture ROTATIONAL
65
DYNAMICS). One still gets a constant acceleration for massive pulleys. Other small eects
due to mass of rope, friction, and air resistance are small and can decreased or accounted
for with renements. The tension in the ropes can be measured using sh scales (which are
spring scales).
12. FRICTION
There are several kinds of friction and in detail all are complex. See 12.4.
Here well just consider friction between macroscopically smooth, dry surfaces at rest
with each otherwhich is static frictionor sliding over each otherwhich is kinetic friction.
(Sometimes we let wetness creep in.)
This is what one usually means when one says friction without qualication.
There are approximate laws that are very accurate for friction in many cases. But they
are actually approximations. Friction is actually a complex and incompletely understood
phenomenon (e.g., Tipler & Mosca 2008, 128)and after all these centuries too.
But in intro treatments, one just treats the approximate laws as if they were exact for
pedagogical purposes. One doesnt want to bother reiterating that they are approximations
all the time especially when one wants to use them to solve problems.
The approximate laws are sometimes Amontonss laws after discoverer Guillaume Amon-
tons (16631705) (Wikipedia: Guillaume Amontons). Leonardo da Vinci (14521519) dis-
covered them independently earlier, but the discovery was not eective since no one knew of
it till centuries later.
Lets give an argument for them.
What actually causes friction between macroscopically smooth surfaces?
66
A form of chemical bonding. But friction as ordinarily considered is NOT a sticky
force in the sense that it resists motion perpendicular to the surfaces of contact. It only acts
parallel to the surfaces.
Of course, actually sticky forces can have friction eects, but thats not the kind of
friction we are considering.
You might guess that this means friction should be proportional to contact area.
At the microscopic level this is roughly true.
But actually surfaces in contact macroscopically in constant are only in contact micro-
scopically only for a fraction of the macroscopic contact area. Even though the surfaces
are macroscopically smooth, at the microscopic level they are rough and surface peaks and
mounds keep them from full microscopic constant.
So one has approximately for friction or frictions upper bound
F fA
macro
, (91)
where A
macro
is the macroscopic contact area and f is the ratio of microscopic contact area
to macroscopic contact area.
It turns out that
f
F
nor
A
macro
, (92)
where F
nor
/A
macro
is the normal force per unit area. The more the surfaces are pressed
together (i.e., the higher the normal force between them), the greater the microscopic contact.
Thus approximately
F fA
macro
= F
nor
. (93)
This last equation essentially combines two of Amontonss: friction or frictions upper bound
is proportional to the normal force and is independent of the macroscopic contact area
67
of course, Amontons didnt put it like thatfor one thing he wrote in French. The third
Amontonss law is given in 12.2.
We treat equation (93) as exact for pedagogical reasons.
Note that if the normal force goes to zero, the friction force (or frictions upper bound)
goes to zero to even if the surfaces are still in macroscopic contact. This is unlike a sticky
force.
But remember we are treating the friction laws as exact and I imagine the distinction
between friction and sticky forces breaks down sometimes.
Lets consider static and kinetic friction now.
12.1. Static Friction
Static friction applies when there is no sliding between the surfaces.
For static friction, the friction force law is
F
st
= min[F
app
,
st
F
nor
] , (94)
where F
app
is the magnitude of the applied force and
st
is the coecient of static friction.
(The symbol is the small Greek letter mu.) The applied force is the net force on an object
parallel to the surface, not counting friction itself.
First thing to note is that equation (94) is just a law about force magnitudes. The
direction of the static friction force is opposite to the applied force and is perpendicular to
the normal force.
What equation (94) means is that if the applied force magnitude is less than or equal to

st
F
nor
, then the static friction force is equal and opposite to the applied force and cancels
68
it.
Thus, if the applied force magnitude exceeds
st
F
nor
, then the object must move.
Equation (94) does apply when the surfaces are sliding with respect to each other. When
that happens, kinetic friction applies ( 12.2)
One can see that static friction is a force of reactionwhich sounds sort of Marxist. It
is only as large as it needs to be to prevent motion, until, of course, it fails when its upper
bound is exceeded.
The coecient of static friction is a dimensionless physical parameter. Its dimensionless
because it can be expressed as a ratio of two quantities of like dimension: static friction and
normal force.
The static friction coecient is depends on the material of the two surfaces in contact.
In general, the coecients will also depend on temperature and pressure and on how the
smooth surfaces are preparedbut we wont worry about those complications in this course.
Typically values of
st
are between of order 0.04 (for teon on teon) (e.g., Tipler
& Mosca 2008, p.130) and of order 1.
Table 1 gives some representative values of static friction coecients and kinetic friction
coecients which we consider in 12.2.
69
Table 1. Approximate Coecients of Static Friction
st
and Kinetic Friction
ki
Materials st
ki
Copper on cast iron 1.1 0.3
Rubber on concrete (dry) 1.0 0.8
Glass on glass 0.9 0.4
Steel on steel 0.7 0.6
Aluminum on steel 0.61 0.47
Copper on steel 0.53 0.36
Brass on steel 0.5 0.4
Rubber on concrete (wet) 0.30 0.25
Wood on wood 0.250.5 0.2
Metal on metal (lubricated 0.15 0.06
Waxed ski on snow (0

C) 0.10 0.05
Ice on ice 0.1 0.03
Teon on teon 0.04 0.04
Teon on steel 0.04 0.04
Synovial joints in humans 0.01 0.003
Note. The values are from Tipler & Mosca
(2008, p. 130) and Serway & Jewett (2008, p. 121).
Although we are primarily thinking of dry surface
friction in our discussion, friction between wet sur-
faces can be treated too using the approximate
laws of friction in some cases. Thus, there are co-
ecients for some wet cases too in the table.
70
The coecients of friction in principle should be calculable from material properties.
But in practice I believe they are usually measured. The calculations may not be suciently
accurate. Friction is actually a complex and incompletely understood phenomenon (e.g.,
Tipler & Mosca 2008, 128).
A simple way to determine the static friction coecient is to put an object with a
smooth surface on an inclined plane with a variable angle .
If the object stays at rest for a given angle , static friction applies. Lets analyze the
system using Newtons 2nd law and remember:
Newtons 2nd law is always true and its always true component by component.
We set the x direction as positive down the incline and the y direction perpendicular to
the incline and the positive direction outward.
From the y direction application of the 2nd law, we know that the normal force magni-
tude is given by
F
nor
= mg cos , (95)
where m is the mass of the object.
From the x direction application of the 2nd law, we know that the
F
x,grav
+ F
st
= mg sin min[mg sin ,
st
mg cos ] = 0 . (96)
We see that if mg sin
st
mg cos the last equation is valid. If mg sin >
st
mg cos
is invalid, and the object will start to slide. When sliding kinetic friction applies ( 12.2).
The function mg sin rising monotonically for the range 0 to 90

and the static friction

upper bound function
st
mg cos falls monotonically for the same range. See Figure 6.
71
Because of the monotonic behaviors, there is only one angle where the functions are
equal and at that point the 2nd law gives
mg sin
st
mg cos = 0 . (97)
If we solve for
st
, we nd that

st
= tan . (98)
One can nd the solution for the upper limit angle by inverting this formula:
= tan
1
(
st
) . (99)
Remarkably the solutions for
st
and are independent of mass and gravity. The
st
solution just depends on the upper limit angle and the upper limit angle solution just
depends on
st
. For small
st
, one has

st
= tan and = tan
1
(
st
)
st
(100)
using small-angle approximations for which is measured in radians.
For, example in the case of teon on teon, sliding would start to occur at
0.04 radians 2.3

.
Fig. 6. Functions mg sin and
st
mg cos .
72
By the by, the small angle approximation for tangent is 1st order good in small which
means that it becomes eectively exact in the limit that
2
is negligibly small compared to
. For angles 10

, 30

, and 45

, the small angle approximation is in error by being too small

by about 1 %, 9 %, and 21 %, respectively.
12.2. Kinetic Friction
The approximate law for kinetic friction F
ki
for surface sliding relative to each other is
F
ki
=
ki
F
nor
, (101)
where
ki
is the kinetic friction coecient and F
nor
is the normal force between the surfaces.
Note the law only relates magnitudes. The kinetic friction is parallel to the surfaces and
the normal force is perpendicular.
The direction of kinetic friction is opposite to the direction of motion. Remember static
friction is opposite to the direction of the applied force on the object parallel to the surfaces.
For pedagogical reasons, we treat this law as exact even though it is approximate.
A remarkable feature of equation (101) is that the force is independent of the relative
speed of the surfaces. This velocity independence is, in fact, Amontonss 3rd law (Wikipedia:
Guillaume Amontons). Certainly not all resistance laws are speed independent. The resis-
tance of uids to motion through them (i.e., drag) tends to be either linear in relative speed
or quadratic in relative speed.
From Table 1, one can see that kinetic friction coecients are almost always distinctly
smaller than the static friction coecients. The vague reason given for this is that bonds
that create friction have less time to form for kinetic friction, and so some bonding does not
take place that does for static friction.
73
One notes that teon on teon and teon on steel have equal static and kinetic coe-
cients to within signicant gures.
What do the smaller kinetic friction coecients mean in practice?
Well, for example the outside forces that control a cars motion are friction. When you
are driving without slipping, the force is actually static friction. The tires and road are at
rest relative to each other at point of contact. But when the car slips it is kinetic friction
that controls the cars motions. Because kinetic friction coecient is smaller than static
coecient, there is less force available to control the car when slipping than when not. Once
you start slipping, there is less friction force available than before and you have to demand
less friction in trying to control the car than you did when not slipping. One of the reasons
slipping is hard to stop is because you have to adjust your expectations about how you
control the car.
12.3. Example: Double-Incline-Pulley System with Kinetic Friction
Lets redo our double-incline-pulley system from 11.5, but now including kinetic fric-
tion.
By including kinetic friction, we are assuming that the objects are in motion.
In this case, the equations of motions for the two x directions are
T m
1
g sin
1

ki
m
1
g cos
1
= m
1
a , (102)
m
2
g sin
2
T
ki
m
2
g cos
2
= m
2
a . (103)
A subtle point. By including the friction terms as we do, we are implicitly assuming
that the objects are moving and that there velocities are positive since kinetic friction always
opposes the direction of motion.
74
The acceleration a can be any of positive, negative, or zero, but our analysis is wrong if
velocity is or becomes zero or negative. One just has to do the analysis more carefully these
bad things happen.
Note that velocity is determined not only by acceleration, but by initial conditions.
Our two unknowns are again a and T. We wont bother solving for T.
Its pretty easy to solve for a. Just add equations (103) and (103) and T cancels out.
Then just rearrange to get the solution for a.
One gets
a = g
_
m
2
(sin
2

ki
cos
2
) m
1
(sin
1
+
ki
cos
1
)
m
1
+ m
2
_
(104)
An interesting special case is when
1
=
2
= 0

: i.e., the system is on level ground.

In this case,
a =
ki
g . (105)
The masses have canceled out and the acceleration is negative.
In order for this result to be valid, the velocity has to be positive just as it does for the
general result.
Equation (105) is just the acceleration you would get for any object sliding on level
ground with only kinetic friction acting.
Why do the masses cancel out for equation (105).
Well kinetic friction is not intrinsically mass dependent. But if the normal force is
linearly dependent on mass, then equation (101) makes kinetic friction linearly dependent
on mass.
If all the forces that can accelerate an object are linear dependent on mass, then mass
75
cancels out of F = ma.
12.4. Other Frictions
??????
13. LINEAR FORCE
The linear force is an extremely important force for reasons that become clear in the
lecture ENERGY. Here we will just say it turns up in many systems of theoretical and
practical interest which include in both categories springs.
The formula for linear force on an object in one dimension is
F = kx , (106)
where k is force constant, x is the object position in the one dimension, and x = 0 gives the
equilibrium point (i.e., the point where the force is zero.
The linear force is a force of many names. It is called:
1. The linear force by yours truly since it is linear in the spatial coordinate.
2. The linear restoring force since it is linear in the spatial coordinate and tries push an
object back to the equilibrium: i.e., it tries to restore the object to equilibrium
3. The spring or ideal spring force since springs are key examples of systems which exert
the linear force: approximately for real springs and exactly for ideal springs. The x = 0
location is the equilibrium position of the spring. At the microscopic level, the spring
force is an electromagnetic force arising from chemical bonds. Springs exhibiting the
76
linear force, are very useful devices for measuring forces (e.g., sh scales, bath room
scales) and in shock absorbing systems like in car suspensions (Wikipedia: Suspension
(Vehicle)).
4. The Hookes law force since equation (106) is called Hookes law. Robert Hooke (1635
1703) rst published the law in 1676 as a Latin anagram which means that he published
a puzzle for folks. In 1678 he unanagramed as Ut tensio, sic vis which means As the
extension, so the force. (Wikipedia: Hookes law).
5. The simple harmonic oscillator force since a simple harmonic oscillator (SHO) is a
system in which this force is the only force causing acceleration (or doing work in the
language of lecture ENERGY).
What is the motion of an object subject to the linear force alone?
Lets apply the 2nd law:
F
x,net
= kx = ma (107)
which we can rewrite as
ma = m
dx
2
dt
2
= kx . (108)
Equation (108) is a DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION(DE) which is an equation whose
solution is not a value, but a function and which involves derivatives of that function. The
function solution for Equation (108) is x(t): i.e., x as function of the independent variable t.
It may be your rst DEat least the rst explicit, non-trivial DE. In fact, F = ma
is really a DEand you never guessed that did youbecause what we typically want is
velocity and position as a function of time and a is derivative of these quantities. When a
is a constant (which has usually been the case hitherto) solving the DE is just integration
(i.e., antidierentiation). When a is not a constant as in equation (108), getting a solution
is trickier.
77
The order of the DE is the highest order derivative of the function in the DE: in the
present case, the DE is 2nd order since the highest is the second derivative. It is a linear
DE since the function and its derivatives occur linearly only. If a function or any of its
derivatives occur non-linearly, a DE is non-linear. Linear DEs are usually much more easy
to solve or approximate than non-linear DEs. It is an ordinary DE because there is only one
independent variable; partial DEs have multiple independent variables.
DEs are everywhere in physics. Much of physical law is, in fact, formulated in terms of
DEs.
Methods of solving DEs are beyond our scope.
But we can just write down the general solution of equation (108) and verify it.
Just writing it down and its 1st and 2nd derivatives, we nd
x = Acos(t) + B sin(t) , (109)
v = A sin(t) + B cos(t) , (110)
a = A
2
cos(t) B
2
sin(t) , (111)
where is called the angular frequency and A and B are constants of integration determined
by the initial conditions.
We see that the given solutions are correct for determined by
k = m
2
or =
_
k
m
(112)
Why is called the angular frequency? Well yours truly can only guess, but the arguments
of cosine and sign are usually thought of as being angles. But if they were, then would
be the number the angular increase (in radians) per unit time, and so angular frequency is
natural. In some other contexts where turns up it really is the angular increase per unit
time.
78
The sine and cosine functions are oscillatory. So the motion of the object is a exactly
repeating oscillation.
In fact, equation (108) is called the simple harmonic oscillator equation and the system
is called the simple harmonic oscillator (SHO).
The oscillatory motion is called simple harmonic motionI suppose because it is so
harmoniousactually simple harmonic motions turn up all over the place in musical ap-
plications. For example, a taut string vibrating in standing waves often exhibits simple
harmonic motion at each point along the string axis in a direction perpendicular to the
string axis (e.g., Halliday et al. 2001, 388).
13.1. Imposing the Initial Conditions
Newtons 2nd law applied to a simple harmonic oscillator is physical law. It says what
is always true about the SHO.
But any particular SHO behavior also depends on the initial conditions of the system
which set bywell by all of past history in real cases.
The initial conditions are imposed on the solution equation (109) by the choice of the
constants of integration.
We have two unknowns A and B and so need two equations for a solution. Say we know
initial position x
0
and initial velocity v
0
of the SHO at time t = 0.
Then from equations (109) and (110) we have
x
0
= A , v
0
= B (113)
which give the solutions
A = x
0
, B =
v
0

. (114)
79
For example, say x
0
= 0 and v
0
, then A and B are both zero and the oscillator stays at
rest at the equilibrium position.
Now that if x
0
> 0 and v
0
= 0, then B = 0, the oscillation starts from rest and A is the
maximum absolute value of the displacement from equilibrium which is called the amplitude.
In general, physical law tells you what is eternal about a system and intial conditions
and boundary conditions (which we formally discuss later) tell you what is peculiar or indi-
vidualistic about the system.
13.2. Angular Frequency , Period P, Frequency f
For our solution, let P be the period of the oscillation.
Now sinusoidal function repeats its behavior (i.e., completes a cycle) every time its
argument increases by 2.
We see that P must satisfy
2 = P (115)
which means that
P =
2

= 2
_
m
k
. (116)
The greater the mass of the object, the longer the periodthe object is more sluggish.
The greater the force constant, the shorter the periodthe object is livelier.
Frequency f is the number of cycles per unit time. Say we had N cycles which, of
course, took time NP. The frequency is given by
f =
N
NP
=
1
P
. (117)
This result is general for any periodic motion.
80
To summarize, the results above, if the motion is simple harmonic motion then
f =
1
P
=

2
, P =
1
f
=
2

, =
f
2
=
2
P
, (118)
and for simple harmonic motion with the linear force
f =
1
P
=

2
=
1
2
_
k
m
, P =
1
f
=
2

= 2
_
m
k
, =
f
2
=
2
P
=
_
k
m
. (119)
13.3. The Linear Force and Gravity: Optional
We can complicate our system a bit by adding gravity to the linear force.
In this case, the direction of motion is the vertical direction.
The 2nd law in this case gives
ma = ky mg , (120)
where we have used y as the coordinate since the motion is in the vertical direction and we
have taken y positive upward and so the gravitational force is downward.
Now y = 0 is the intrinsic equilibrium point of the linear force.
But note
ma = ky mg = k
_
y
mg
k
_
= k(y y
eq
) , (121)
where dene y
eq
= mg/k.
????????
13.4. Springs in Parallel: Optional
????????
81
13.5. Springs in Series: Optional
????????
14. INERTIAL FORCES
Say you are in an non-inertial frame with constant acceleration a
in
relative to inertial
frames.
And remember, if a
in
is the acceleration relative to one inertial frame, it is the acceler-
ation relative to all inertial frames.
This frame may actually be attached to solid body (e.g., the proverbial elevator or
rocket) or it may just be a dened frame of the mind.
But its not a rotating frame. Such a frame doesnt have a single acceleration relative
to inertial frames. Rotating frames are tricky to handle than our inertial frame and well
leave them to the lecture ROTATIONAL DYNAMICS???.
Consider a particle with acceleration a relative to inertial frames.
Relative to the non-inertial frame, the particle has acceleration
a

= a a
in
, (122)
and thus
a = a

+a
in
. (123)
We apply the 2nd law to the particle

F
net
= ma . (124)
82
Nothing forbids us from rewriting this formula thusly:

F
net
= m(a

+a
in
) (125)

F
net
ma
in
= ma

(126)

F
net
+

F
in
= ma

(127)

net
= ma

, (128)
where we have dened an inertial force by

F
in
= ma
in
(129)
and the net force in the non-inertial frame by

net
=

F
net
+

F
in
. (130)
The inertial force is not a real force. It is a ctitious force by another name.
But in the non-inertial frame it acts like a real force in an equation that is Newtons
2nd law for the non-inertial frame:

net
= ma

. (131)
What kind of force is the inertial force?
Well its a eld force. It requires no body on body contact.
For our case of a single constant acceleration for our inertial frame, the inertial force is
a constant eld forceit is the same for all points in space. It is also linearly dependent on
mass.
Its like gravity near the Earths surface:

F
grav
= mg( y) . (132)
83
So any particle in the non-inertial frame is aected by the inertial force as if it there
were a Earth-surface-like gravitational eld of a
in
.
Exactly like.
No experiment can tell the dierence.
This gravity-like property of inertial forces was a starting point for Einsteins general
relativitybut we dont have quite enough time to go down that roadits a bad road with
tensors and dierential geometry.
Lets look at some special cases of what the inertial force does.
14.1. Free Fall in the Non-Inertial Frame
If the non-inertial force is the net force, then the 2nd law specializes to

F
in
= ma
in
= ma

(133)
which leads to
a

= a
in
. (134)
So in the non-inertial frame, the particle acceleration is just a
in
.
The particle is in free fall in the non-inertial frame.
What is the acceleration relative to inertial frames?
Well
a = a

+a
in
= a
in
+a
in
= 0 . (135)
So in inertial frames, the particle isnt accelerated.
No real forces act on it, and so it shouldnt be.
84
14.2. Equilibrium in the Non-Inertial Frame
If the particle is equilibrium in the non-inertial frame

F

net
= 0 and a

= 0.
This means that

net
=

F
net
ma
in
= 0 (136)
or

F
net
= ma
in
, (137)
and so
a = a
in
. (138)
There must be a net real force to cause acceleration of the particle equal to the non-
inertial frames acceleration.
What can cause that net force?
Well any real force.
But for many objects in non-inertial frames, it must be normal, tension, and/or pressure
forces.
And this is not just for objects as a whole, but for every particle of them.
Exactly the same forces as needed to support objects against gravity.
So to accelerate with our non-inertial frame, the objects and you need all the external
and internal forces that would be need to support against gravity.
In such an non-inertial frame, you would feel just like you were in a gravity eld of a
in
.
In a car accelerating forward, you experience an inertial force to the rear that that is
just like a gravity force to the rear. In an elevator accelerating upward, you experience an
inertial force that is just like an additional gravity force.
85
But wait you say.
What if you just let go and didnt try to accelerate with the frame. All those forces
wouldnt be needed and youd just be accelerated by a
in
as we found in 14.1.
Youd feel weightless.
But this also true of gravity.
If you just let gravity alone act on you, you are in free fall and feel weightless.
Gravity is pulling on you atom by atom, and you need no external or internal forces to
counteract it.
The feeling of weightlessness is really the feeling of not trying to counteract gravity.
15. Example: Life in an Elevator
Following in the footsteps of Einstein, lets consider life in an elevatoror alligator as
I would have called it when I was a tyke.
The elevator has acceleration a
in
= a
in
y.
Then the 2nd law for the elevator frame is

net
=

F
other
mg y ma
in
y = ma

, (139)
where

F
other
is all forces aside from gravity and the inertial force.
For the elevator frame, one can dene an eective gravity eld y component by
g
e
= g a
in
. (140)
The eective weight of any object of mass m in the elevator is then
mg
e
= m(g + a
in
) . (141)
86
This is just what a spring scale would measure. The mg part is the upward force the
scale would have to supply to counter gravity and the ma
in
part is the upward force the scale
would have to supply to accelerate the mass to acceleration of the elevator frame.
Of course, a
in
can be greater or smaller than zero.
In the former case, you would feel heavier than normal and in the later lighter than
normal.
Note the direction of acceleration is not that of the velocity. The elevator can be going
up or down and in either direction have the elevator acceleration can be upward or downward.
What if the elevator were in free fall?
Then a
in
= g, and objects in the elevator non-inertial frames are weightless.
Of course, all that weightlessness ends when the big normal force kicks in at the bottom
of the shaft.
Just for some number fun say a
el
= 2 m/s
2
which is a respectable elevator acceleration.
You have an object of mass 4 kg. Its real weight is
mg 4 10 = 40 N (142)
But eectively in the elevator frame, its weight is
mg
e
= mg
_
1 +
a
el
g
_
40
_
1
2
10
_
=
_
48 for the upper case;
32 for the lower case.
(143)
15.1. Example: Life in an Elevator Part 2: Optional
Weve discussed the situation in general above in 14.2. So the following discussion is
really redundant. But here we can be a bit more concrete.
87
You may wonderas I did for many yearshow does our eective gravity really aect
non-point-mass objects: i.e., systems of particles.
Since the INERTIAL FORCE just eectively changes gravity in the formalism, log-
ically it should just be like a change in gravity for non-point-mass objects. But how does
one see this concretely? Consider yourself. You stand upnot in the elevator, but on the
ground. Each layer of your body must support the weight of all the mass above that layer.
This takes forces, internal forces in your bodythese forces acting give you that sense of
heaviness. Inanimate objects also have internal forces supporting them layer by layerbut
they probably dont have a sense of heaviness.
What can you do about this heaviness sense? Lying down helps a bit by rearranging
the layering. Go into free fall helps a lot more. Gravity reaches out pulls on you atom by
atom and if you dont ghtjust go with it gravityyou dont have that sense of heaviness
though really you weigh just as much as beforebut those internal forces (partially under
your control which is why you arnt lying down all the time) needed to support against
gravity are turned o since they dont need to support you.
Now you are in the elevator. Say its accelerating upward. Now you not only have to
support everything above each layer against gravity, but you have to accelerate it too. But
the same kind of internal forces are needed to do that as to support against gravity.
So you feel heavier. This is exactly what our analysis above tells us you should feel
since in the elevator its eectively as if gravity has increased. Say the elevator accelerates
downward. Now you have to support everything above each layer against gravity, but you
have to accelerate it too, but downward. Thus, less internal force is needed. So you feel
lighter This is exactly what our analysis above tells us you should feel since in the elevator
its eectively as if gravity has increased. What if a
el
= g? Well then the eective gravity is
zero and relative to the elevator you are weightless. Of course, relative to the outside world,
88
you are not weightless, you are in free fall. Either way you are oating arounduntil the
big normal force at the bottom of the shaft kicks in.
Now all our analysis has been for an elevator on Earth. But the same analysis can apply
to any rectilinear accelerating frame. In some places like empty space far from any body,
there would be no gravity eld. And there doesnt have to be any physical embodiment of the
reference frame: the frame can just imagined coordinate axes ying through space. Rotating
frames, which are also NON-INERTIAL FRAMES, present some extra complications.
You need two other kinds of INERTIAL FORCE: the centrifugal and the coriolis force
(e.g. French 1971, p. 523). But all that is a story for another day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Support for this work has been provided by the Department of Physics of the University
of Idaho.
A. APPENDIX A: TENSION IN AN IDEAL ROPE
Now for a rather elaborate derivation which we do for a darn good reasonwhich is to
understand what is really happening for an ideal rope.
Lets consider an ideal rope that follows a curved path through space.
The path and paths direction at each point are continuous.
It is a smooth curved path.
The tension in the rope is T. It is not constant in general and for the sake of generality,
we allow tension T be positive, zero, or negative. Nothing in the developments that follow
require positive tension. We take up the consideration of negative tension in A.2.1.
89
Now the region about a general point on a curved path can be approximated as part
of circle in a plane centered on a center of curvature. (I think this can always be done even
for a general smooth curve in three-dimensional space.) Let the circle have radius r. If the
curve is actually straight at this general point or the point is actually an inection point, the
center of curvature is at innity and r = . The circle approximation is rst order good in
small angular deviation of a radius vector from the general point. But we wont proof that
here.
Now let the center be the origin of an x axis and let the general point be at on the
positive side of the x axis.
Let be an angle measured from the positive x axis small enough that the actual curve
approximates the circle to arbitrary accuracy from 0 to . See Figure 7.
Lets apply the 2nd law to the rope segment from 0 to and from 5.3, remember the
class mantra::
Newtons 2nd law is always true and its always true component by component.
But note we are applying the 2nd law to an object which are NOT considering as a particle.
This is valid as well discuss in the lecture SYSTEMS OF PARTICLES AND MOMENTUM.
Fig. 7. An ideal ropes curved path approximated by a circle.
90
The acceleration for the non-particle is that of the center of mass as it turns out. In the
present case, by taking limits that allow us to skirt the issue of where the center-of-mass is.
First, consider the x direction:
T sin + F
x
= ma
x
, (A1)
where T is the tension at , F
x
is some other applied force in the x direction, m is the mass
of the rope segment, and a
x
is the segments acceleration.
The tension forces recall must be aligned with the rope. The sin factor gives the correct
component of the tension forces for the x direction. The tension force at angle zero has zero
component in the x direction and so does not appear in equation (A1).
Since our rope is ideal m = 0 and we have
T sin + F
x
= 0 . (A2)
Note is suciently small that F
x
0 for the equation to be valid. If the rope is being
accelerated, then the acceleration must be determined the system the rope is attached too.
Without that system, the acceleration would be undened.
Now consider the y direction:
T cos T
0
+ F
y
= ma
y
, (A3)
where T
0
is the tension at zero angle.
The tension forces recall must be aligned with the rope. The cosine factors give the
correct components of the tension forces for the y direction. For zero angle, the cosine factor
is 1, of course.
Since our rope is ideal m = 0 and we have
T cos T
0
+ F
y
= 0 . (A4)
91
If the rope is being accelerated, then again the acceleration must be determined the system
the rope is attached too. Without that system, the acceleration would be undened.
Now we want to nd the ratio F
x
/(r) (with measured in radians) in the limit that
goes to zero. This is the normal force per unit length at the general point. Lets call it f
nor
.
We nd
f
nor
= lim
0
F
x
(r)
= lim
0
T sin
(r)
=
T
0
r
, (A5)
where we have used the well known calculus result that
lim
0
sin

= 1 . (A6)
Next we want to nd tension varies with at the general point. Dierentiating (A4)
with respect to gives
dT
d
cos T sin +
dF
y
d
= 0 . (A7)
Evaluating at = 0 and rearranging gives
dT
d
=
dF
y
d
. (A8)
We now see that at the general point F
y
is a force parallel the ropes path. Lets rename
F
y
to F
par
, where par is for parallel.
To get general results, let s be distance along the rope which take to be increasing in
the positive y direction at the general point. We now note that at the general point
ds = d(r) = r d + dr = r d , (A9)
where dr = 0 at the general point since by denition along the path at the general point the
path is a circle to rst order.
Finally, we get
f
nor
=
T
r
(A10)
92
and
dT
ds
=
dF
par
ds
= f
par
, (A11)
where f
par
is the force per unit length and where we have dropped the subscript 0 from
equation (A10) since we now just mean T and r are evaluated at a general s: likewise
equation (A11) is evaluated at a general s.
Equations (A10) and (A11) are what weve been working for. They are exact, I believe,
since the circle path approximation is exact at the general point where we evaluated them.
Lets explicate them a bit.
A.1. Equation f
nor
=
T
r
Explicated
Equation (A10) gives the normal force per unit length exerted on the rope by some
surface and, by the 3rd law, by the rope on that surface. The direction of the normal force
on the rope is away from the local center of curvature and the normal force the rope exerts
is toward the local center of curvature.
We see that if T is zero (i.e., tension is zero) or r innite (the rope is straight), then the
normal force per unit length is zero.
Our derivation oddly enough allows for r and therefore f
nor
to change discontinuously.
This happens for example at the point where are rope changes from being straight to just
bending around a curve surface (such as that of a pulley). In our derivation, we just take
dierent radii for the dierent sides of the general point. The tension cant change discon-
tinuously at such a point unless F
par
does (see just below).
Since you cant push on an ideal rope, it seems odd at rst that a rope can exert a
normal force per unit length. But on the other hand, all life experience shows it does since
93
you can pull things with a rope loop.
A.2. Equation
dT
ds
=
dF
par
ds
Explicated
Equation (A11) gives the rate of change of the tension with path length due to the inte-
grated applied parallel force component F
par
which has its positive direction in the direction
of increasing s. If F
par
increases with s, tension decreases. One can view this as tension
decreasing to accommodate increasing F
par
. Discontinuous changes in F
par
are allowed too.
One simply views them as the limiting case of very rapid changes in F
par
. If F
par
changes
discontinuously from by F
par
, then the discontinuous change in tension is
T = F
par
. (A12)
Equation (A11) also shows us how ropes transmit force.
If we integrate equation (A11) from the beginning to s of the rope, we nd
T(s) T
0
=
_
s
0
dT
ds
ds =
_
S
0
f
par
ds = F
par
(s) (A13)
where T
0
is the tension at the start of the rope and F
par
(s) is the integrated parallel force
component to point s, and where note that F
par
(0) = 0. Thus, we can write
T(s) = T
0
F
par
(s)] . (A14)
Note that T
0
must be equal the magnitude of the applied force at the start of the rope.
This applied force pulls antiparallel to the rope.
Say the end of the rope is s
max
. The applied force at the end of the rope must equal
T(s
max
) in magnitude and point parallel to the rope.
That there are applied forces at the start and end is a given condition. If these are zero,
then rope has zero tension at the start and end.
94
Note if F
par
(s
max
) = 0, then T(s
max
) = T
0
, and the starting applied force magnitude
is transmitted to the end of the rope where the rope pulls on whatever source of the end
applied force with a force of magnitude T
0
. This is the ideal case of a transmission of force
by a rope. The transmission can be around curves.
A.2.1. Negative Tension Explicated: Optional
The formalism developed above allows the tension to go negative.
What the heck does that mean?
If the tension goes negative, the rope resists compression along its length and there
must be an applied external center-attracting force (rather than an applied external center-
repelling force) to keep them a circular path. (Checking back over our developments shows
that this makes sense.) For positive tension, the rope is stable when straight and if unstraight
would return to straightness if the external applied forces turned o. For negative tension,
the rope is unstable when straight: i.e., any perturbation from exact axial symmetry along
the rope would cause buckling. When unstraight, the rope would buckle with any applied
force that tried to compress it. The buckling behavior is ill-dened for ideal rope since
we have no dened fully buckled state for an ideal ropethe fully buckled state for a real
rope isnt known without careful specications for each case. The stability and instability
statements just follow from everyday observations and not mathematical proofbut that
could be done to I suppose.
Real ropes actually actually resist compression and actually do behave like the ideal
rope under compression.
So the generalization of the ideal rope to negative tension cases is valid.
95
But negative tension cases may not have so much use, because of the instability to
undened buckling of both ideal and real ropes.
To see this note that in two dimensions, forces needed keep the rope under positive
tension on a curve a fairly easy to arrange: just a single solid curved surface will do: the
instability toward straightness is stopped. But for negative tension because of instability to
ill-dened buckling, you would need a 2-dimensional pipe to keep real rope from buckling:
inhomogeneities in the rope could cause it to buckle away from just a curved surfrace that
would prevent an ideal rope from buckling. If the real rope can buckle easily where an ideal
wouldnt, then the ideal rope isnt much use as model for reality.
In three dimensions, its a bit trickier. For positive tension, one often needs a groove for
the rope to run through like those on pulleys to prevent the instability toward straightness.
Even though real pulleys are semi-2-dimensional, the groove prevents the rope from slipping
o in practical applications. For negative tension, because of the instability to buckling for
both real and ideal ropes would probably have to be conned to pipes.
Now if you are going to conne a rope to a pipe, then you might as well dispense with
ropes and use the pipe to hold a uid that can be used to transmit a forcein other words
use hydraulics.
Come to think of it, rope and pulley systems are probably of most use when you have
transmit forces that cause rotation and in particular rotation at high speeds.
Hydraulic systems are more suited for straight pushing needs, but they are a bit more
exible than rope and pulley systems and probably can be used to transmit much larger
forces easily.
96
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