ANALYSIS

Physics denotes the study of matter, forces and energy, as well as the
interaction among them. However, it does not only cover lessons such as
Kinematics, Projectile Motion and Mechanics. Physics also talks about the lessons
regarding Newton’s Laws of Motion. In 1686, Sir Isaac Newton, an English
polymath, presented three laws in his trilogy ‘Principia Mathematica Philosophiae
Naturalis’. These laws deal with the behavior of a certain object once a force is
applied on it. This experiment mainly focused on Newton’s second law of motion.
Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of motion foresees that matter only changes its
velocity due to an external force around it, and it is commonly known as ‘The Law
of Inertia’. This law states that an object, whether it is at rest or in motion, will stay
at rest or in motion unless there is an unbalanced external force applied on it. Objects
having equilibrium or the state wherein all forces around an object are balanced, will
not have an acceleration. If the forces surrounding an object are all balanced, hence,
the acceleration of that object will remain 0 m/s 2. Therefore, an occurrence of an
unbalanced external force will result to the acceleration of a certain object. This force
may change the direction or speed of an object or change them at the same time.
Unlike his first law, Newton’s second law of motion deals with the reaction
of object if the forces surrounding it are all unbalanced. This law states that the
acceleration of an object will depend on two variables – the net force that is applied
on it and its total mass. The difference between the two is that the object will
accelerate directly upon the net force acting on it, while it will accelerate inversely
upon its own mass. In a more basic explanation, once the force acting upon an object
increases, the object will have its acceleration increased also. However, if the mass
of the object increases, the acceleration of the object will decrease. For a more formal
statement of the second law of motion by Sir Isaac Newton, it says that: The
acceleration of an object with surrounding unbalanced forces, is directly
proportional to the net force acting upon it and inversely proportional to own mass.
The experiment that was conducted on November 15, 2018 was called
Experiment No.101: Newton’s Second Law of Motion. The focus of this experiment
is to distinguish the difference between the relationships of acceleration of the object
and net force acting around it, and between the acceleration and the object’s mass.
After conducting the experiment, data were obtained and were written in the tables
on page three (3).
 For the first table, Table 1. Constant Mass, Changing Net Force.
The first column includes the number of trials that were done for the whole
experiment.
The second column is about the total hanging mass that was used to pull the
dynamics cart on the dynamics track.
The third column contains the net force of each trial that were obtained by
multiplying the hanging mass of each trial by the gravitational field which is 9.8
m/s2. For every trial, you can observe that the net force is increasing as the hanging
mass increases.
The fourth column covers the accepted value of the acceleration. The data in
this column were obtained by dividing the net force by the sum of the masses of the
cart and hanging weight. It is observable that the acceleration increases as the net
force increases. This only proves that acceleration is directly proportional to the net
force.
The fifth column includes the time of travel that was computed through the
photogates and smart timer that were placed and assembled before the experiment.
The sixth column contains the experimental value of the acceleration for every
trial. These values were gotten by doubling the distance and dividing it by the square
of the time travelled by the cart. The data showed that a little difference with the
prior acceleration column.
The last and seventh column covers the percentage error between the two
columns of acceleration. The data in this column were computed by subtracting the
accepted and experimental value and dividing their difference by the accepted value
of acceleration.

For the second table, Table 2. Changing Mass, Constant Net Force, the only
column that was missing in this table is net force since this experiment aimed to
determine the acceleration without changing the force that was applied on the object.
In this table, the accelerations showed an inverse proportionality with the total mass.
In other words, the value of acceleration decreases as the total mass increases and
vice versa.
 CONCLUSION
In summary of this experiment, Physics does not only focus on the movement
of matter with respect to space and time, also it covers the topic regarding the Laws
of Motion that were developed and established by Sir Isaac Newton which really
played a huge role in what people believe in today. The second law of motion states
that the acceleration of an object will depend on two variables – the net force that is
applied on it and its total mass. This law pertains to the reaction of an object once an
unbalanced force is acted upon it. In addition to this, gravity also played a great role
in validating this law. It helped in identifying the acceleration of an object on the
horizontal axis by pulling it down using its force.
Given the points and tables above, it is noticeable that the net force and total
mass yielded different results in the acceleration of an object. First is the relationship
between the net force being applied on an object and the acceleration of an object.
Based on Table 1, the results formed a single interpretation. That is, increasing the
net force acting upon an object increases the object’s acceleration, given that the
total mass of the object is constant, and the only varying thing is the unbalanced
forces around the object.
Second, the relationship between the total mass of an object and its
acceleration produced another explanation. These two variables showed an inversely
proportionality with each other. In a lighter sense, once the mass of an object
decreases, its acceleration increases and vice versa. For this instance, the net force
was set to be as the constant variable, white the varying one was the total mass of
the object.
Together with the data that were gathered after conducting the experiment, the
second law of motion by Sir Isaac Newton was confirmed by the group. The
statement of the second law, ‘The acceleration of an object is directly proportional
to the net force and inversely proportional to its mass.’, was validated through the
help of having an experiment and gathering accurate results. The results were
authenticated by computing the percentage of error in every trial. Though there were
some minimal discrepancies regarding the results, the trends in the graphs showed
the different relationships among the three variables.
In conclusion, Newton’s second law of motion is a validated theory having
supporting experiments and accurate results. Basing on the tables and graphs of this
experiment, it will be safe to say that an object’s acceleration depends on two
variables – the net force surrounding it and its actual mass. The object has a direct
proportional relationship with the net force acting upon it; while the net force is
increasing, the acceleration also increases. On the other hand, the acceleration of an
object is inversely proportional with its total mass; once the mass increases, the
acceleration will decrease.