Omar Nizar

11B

15/12/2020

Newton’s Second law

Purpose: Verify Newton’s second law of motion
Introduction:
Sir Issacs Newton changed the world of physics after publishing The Principia. In which he discussed his
three laws of motion that we use until this day.

An object at rest will remain and rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted on by
an external force is Newton’s first law of motion, but how can it be correct? If an object is moving, then
there must be a force responsible for its movement so how can there be no external forces? The answer
here lies in the term constant velocity. Imagine a football rolling towards you with constant speed on
frictionless grass, the ball would never stop. It will only stop if you use your feet to provide an external
force on it. But what about a heavier ball? The magnitude of that force needed to stop the ball would
change for different masses and this is where Newton’s second law of motion comes into action.

Newton’s second law

Newton’s second law states that the acceleration of an object is in the direction to the net force and that
the acceleration is directly proportional to the net force and inversely proportional to its mass. The
formula for this relation is expressed in the formula below.

Fnet= ma [1]

keep in mind that force and acceleration are vector quantities. This means that Newton’s second law
works in all directions, meaning when dealing with motion in three dimensions we can break down the
net force into x, y and z components.

Fnet,x = max [2]

Fnet,y = may [3]

Fnet,z = maz [4]

Is newton’s second law of motion invalid? (PE)

Newton’s second law of motion states that the net force on an object is directly proportional to
its mass x acceleration or F=ma meaning it would be easy to start moving a “light” object and it
would be harder to stop a “heavier” one while in motion. but is that always the case? Imagine a
rocket ship being launched into space, its fuel starts burning and it starts accelerating away
from earth. When put into practice, using F=ma provided false magnitudes. After several
attempts and trying to link momentum with the net force I found another equation that
describes the forces produced by the rocket’s engine, it is shown in picture 1
Picture 1: my equation

I was astonished when I first looked at this, I remember thinking did I just debunk newton’s second law?
After recalculating with this equation, the answer was correct. The net force is proportional to the rate
of change of momentum. But after looking at this again I realized it was equivalent F=ma when mass is
constant which is the case for most of our ordinary life experiences with motion. This realization is
shown below.

picture 2: constant mass

Reflection
This had happened when I first started out with physics and it was interesting to see how substituting
multiple equations with different variable and complex concepts would all add up to this simple and yet
accurate representation of the net force.

Newton’s second law in action

Figure 1 shows a system of two masses attached together with a string.

Figure 1: our experiment (citation for our pictures is in the end)

The hanging mass (m1) is being pulled down by the earth or being accelerated towards the earth, this
gravitational acceleration is what we call g causing the mass to accelerate downwards. We will call the
resistive force of the rope T (tension)

Since the cart (m2) is accelerating then it must have a force pulling it, and that is T the tension in the
rope but there is also the force of friction (f) between the track and the cart, here you need to
remember Newton’s second law states that the net force is equal to mass times acceleration, and so
even if the cart is accelerating to the right, the force of friction still exists but the tension in the rope
overpowers it.

The net force is the summation of all the forces acting on a body

A vector quantity is a physical value that has direction

The gravitational attraction at the surface of the earth is g

(v−u)
For every object in free fall it accelerates by 9.8ms -2 and a=
t
Free body diagram
Let us take the positive x direction to the right and the negative y direction downwards to draw a free
body diagram of the forces acting on this system

FBD(1)

For the hanging mass, there are no horizontal forces, so its net force can be expressed using the
following equation

Fnet b= m1g - T = m1a [5]

The cart moving on the track has two vertical forces acting on it, but since it is not accelerating vertically
it means that these two forces are equal, and since forces are vector quantities, they cancel each other
out. As for the horizontal forces the force of friction is resisting the Tension of the rope, but it
overcomes it and the object accelerates to the right This is expressed mathematically below

Fnet,a, y = FN – m2g = 0 [6]

Fnet,a, x = T – f = m2a [7]

Now that these two bodies are attached with a spring, we know that they are being driven by the same
force, and the tension is the same because the string does stretch so we can combine both equations for
a and b and eliminate T resulting in

m1g = a (m1 + m2) + f [8]

The total mathematical derivation is shown next page

Picture (1) derivation
Objective:
Prove the validity of Newton’s second law by showing that the net force acting on the net force of the
system is directly proportional to the acceleration of the car

Materials:

 Toy car
 Track or ruler
 String
 Rubber band (to attach the string to the car)
 Two photogates
 Data logger
 Known masses

Procedure:

 Set up the track for the car and placed the photogates connected to the data logger
 Measured the length of the car and its weight
 Attached the spring to the car using the rubber band and to the known mass
 Made sure the known mass was not swinging and let it go
 Let the car pass through the photogates and recorded time A, B and AB from the data logger.
 Repeated three times for every mass and made sure each were statistically significant trials

The diagram below shows the setup of the experiment

Diagram (1)
Raw data:
All uncertainties are explained in detail in the uncertainties section.

Length of the car 37.7±1 mm

mass of the car 172.6±0.5g
gravitational acceleration 9.80665ms-2
Total length of the track 118±1 cm
distance of photogates 360± 1mm
Table (0) (raw data)

The following tables show the data recording by the photogates for each mass with:

-Time A is the time the car took to pass through photogate A

-Time B is the time the car took to pass through photogate B

-Time AB is the time the car took to reach from photogate A to Photogate B

-All time values are limited to ±0.005 s uncertainty

Mass (g) 85.7±0.05g 85.7±0.05g 85.7±0.05g 100±0.05g 100±0.05g 100±0.05g

Trial Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
Time A (s) 0.0641 0.0426 0.0409 0.037 0.0374 0.0375
Time B (s) 0.0509 0.0292 0.0273 0.0234 0.0239 0.0238
Time AB (s) 0.5248 0.3414 0.3371 s 0.3036 0.3098 0.3098
Table 1

Mass (g) 140±0.05g 140±0.05g 140±0.05g 160±0.05g 160±0.05g 160±0.05g

Trial Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3 Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
Time A (s) 0.0314 0.0319 0.03 0.0285 0.0292 0.0301
Time B (s) 0.0198 0.0199 0.0188 0.0191 0.0196 0.0219
Time AB (s) 0.2563 0.2614 0.2452 0.23 0.2355 0.2351
Table 2

Mass (g) 120±0.05g 120±0.05g 120±0.05g

Trial Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
Time A (s) 0.0343 0.0338 0.033
Time B (s) 0.021 0.0214 0.0246
Time AB (s) 0.2743 0.2741 0.2666
Table 3

All unlabeled time numerical values are in second and limited to ±0.005 s uncertainty

Uncertainties:
Uncertainty of mass of the car and string
The gravitational force of the earth on the hanging mass did not only pull the car, it pulled the string that
was holding the car and the added mass together closer to the ground. Since the string was very light,
we assumed it was negligible but, that is not the case. In addition, we have the systematic error of the
balance. And so, an uncertainty of ±0.5 grams was estimated
Numerical value 172g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.5g
Fractional Uncertainty 2.90 x 10-3
Percentage uncertainty 0.290697674%
Uncertainty 1
Systematic uncertainties
The measurements A, B, AB and the mass of the known masses were all indicated by instruments that
provide a clear reading leaving no chance for human random error but only systematic error.
Numerical value 85.7g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.1g
Fractional Uncertainty 1.16 x 10-3
Percentage uncertainty 0.116686114%
Mass 1
Numerical value 100g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.1g
Fractional Uncertainty 1 x 10-3
Percentage uncertainty 0.1%
Mass 2
Numerical value 120g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.1g
Fractional Uncertainty 8.33 x 10-4
Percentage uncertainty 0.083333333%
Mass 3
Numerical value 140g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.1g
Fractional Uncertainty 7.14 x 10-4
Percentage uncertainty 0.071428571%
Mass 4
Numerical value 160g
Absolute uncertainty ±0.1g
Fractional Uncertainty 6.2 x 10-4
Percentage uncertainty 0.0625%
Mass 5
Since the data logger gave the time measurement to the fourth decimal place the uncertainty would be
±0.0001 s or 1 x 10-4 s which wouldn’t affect the precision of the experiment so we will take the
measurements to the third decimal place which is still very precise.

The uncertainty of lengths

Measurements like the track length or distance between photogates or length of the car all include the
systematic uncertainty of the measuring device, but since a ruler does not provide a digital numerical
value and that leaves place for human error. Therefore, an uncertainty off ±1 unit of the smallest
graduation of the instrument was provided. All measurements below are after converting to meters

Numerical value 0.0377m

Absolute uncertainty ±0.001m
Fractional Uncertainty 0.026525199
Percentage uncertainty 2.652519894%
Length of the car
Numerical value 1.18m
Absolute uncertainty ±0.01m
Fractional Uncertainty 0.008474576
Percentage uncertainty 0.847457627%
Length of the track
Numerical value 0.36m
Absolute uncertainty ±0.001m
Fractional Uncertainty 0.002777778
Percentage uncertainty 0.277777778%
Distance between photogates

Other Sources of error:

The car’s forth wheel was titled, leading to the car not moving in a straight line and so hitting one of the
photogates. This resulted in error. This inelastic collusion means that the car lost some of its kinetic
energy colliding with the photogate. And so, using this data to find the total force of each would result
in invalid results since there is something else that resisted the acceleration of the car in this trial than
other trials.

When the car collides with a photogate, this means that its distance from the origin point and the other
photogate changes. If the distance between each photogate changes then the time value it takes to get
from photogate A to photogate B in different trials is invalid. Even though the distance between the two
photogates is not present in calculations, this movement means that we cannot compare different trials
with each other since each time the car covered a distance in time AB that distance was different.

Even though both of these are significant reasons for error, there is no way this can be put into a
mathematical description as in ±x because, the distance is not present in calculations and this only
happened in certain trials not all of them. For example, the car collided with a photogate in trial one and
again in trial four, we cannot know that the movement in trial one is the same as trial four so we cannot
compare them, and we cannot compare trial 1 with trial 2 because the distance covered in time AB is
different but we can compare trial two and three because it’s the same distance covered. In addition,
the data provided for this experiment did not provide which trial had collided and which has not.

Another source of uncertainty would be that the hanging mass would sometimes swing, gaining
momentum on the way down and thus pushing the car with a greater force than the gravitation force
only.

These are the reasons why am going to give the acceleration value, frictional force and the vertical force
value an uncertainty of 5% of the value.

My hypothesis:
I think since we are making the assumption that the string is weightless and the car kept colliding with
the photogates and changing the position, in addition to all the systematic and random errors
mentioned, that newton’s second law will be verified but with low precision and accuracy. This is also a
result of the frictional force of the track on the car since it would make it harder to prove that the total
force on the hanging mass, is the same as the mass time acceleration of the car because the track wasn’t
as smooth ((with low friction) as preferred, and so there is a resisting force greater on the car (friction of
the track) than the resisting force on the hanging mass (air resistance).
Data processing:
The following are the data of the data logger from the first trial of the experiment.
Hanging mass added Time A Time B Time AB
0.0857 kg 0.0641 s 0.0509 s 0.5248 s
0.0857 kg 0.0409 s 0.0273 s 0.3371 s
0.0857 kg 0.0426 s 0.0292 s 0.3414 s

We know that speed is distance over time so we can divide the length of the car (0.037m ±0.001m) by
each time value to get the speed the car had at each photogate.

Hanging mass Time A (s) Time B (s) Time AB (s) V(a) m/s V(b) m/s
added (kg)
0.0857 0.0641 0.0509 0.5248 0.588144 0.740668
0.0857 0.0409 0.0273 0.3371 0.92176 1.380952
0.0857 0.0426 0.0292 0.3414 0.884977 1.291096

Now that we have two values for speed (since both are in the same direction, we can call them velocity
initial and velocity final) we can divide that by the time to get a value for acceleration using

Acceleration = (v-u) ÷ t
so (V(b)) - V(a)) ÷ AB = a

Now using equation [1] F=ma we can find the total force on the hanging mass by multiplying it by g and
to fill equation [8] we need to find (m1 + m2) x a where a is the car’s acceleration and finding the
frictional force by taking their difference. Lastly, we take the average of all the measures to get the most
accurate measure for this trial

Hanging a Hanging (m1+m2) a Length of car mass of the Frictional force

mass added (m/s* mass x g (N) (N) (m) car (kg) (Force lost) (N)
(kg) s)

0.0857 0.290 0.83986 0.075071 0.0377 0.1726 0.764789372

633
0.0857 1.362 0.83986 0.351852 0.0377 0.1726 0.488008054
183
0.0857 1.189 0.83986 0.307266 0.0377 0.1726 0.532593943
57
Average 0.9474 0.83986 0.244729 0.0377 0.1726 0.595130456
Acceleration and hanging mass

The following pages show the calculations for the rest of the masses
100 grams mass

Trial Hanging mass Time A (s) Time B (s) Time AB (s) V(a) m/s
added (kg)
Trial 1 0.1 0.037 0.0234 0.3036 1.018918919
Trial 2 0.1 0.0374 0.0239 0.3098 1.00802139
Trial 3 0.1 0.0375 0.0238 0.3098 1.005333333
Average 0.1 0.0373 0.0237 0.307733 1.010757881
V(b) m/s a (m/s*s) Hanging mass x g (m1+m2) a Length of car (m)
(N)
1.611111111 1.950567168 0.98 0.53172461 0.0377
1.577405858 1.837909837 0.98 0.501014221 0.0377
1.584033613 1.867980246 0.98 0.509211415 0.0377
1.590850194 1.88548575 0.98 0.513983415 0.0377
mass of the car (kg) Frictional force (N)
0.1726 0.44827539
0.1726 0.478985779
0.1726 0.470788585
0.1726 0.466016585
Acceleration and hanging mass

120 grams mass

Trial Hanging mass Time A (s) Time B (s) Time AB (s) V(a) m/s
added (kg)
Trial 1 0.12 0.0343 0.021 0.2743 1.099125364
Trial 2 0.12 0.0338 0.0214 0.2741 1.115384615
Trial 3 0.12 0.033 0.0246 0.2666 1.142424242
Average 0.12 0.0337 0.02233 0.271667 1.118978074
V(b) m/s a (m/s*s) Hanging mass x g (m1+m2)a Length of car (m)
(N)
1.795238095 2.537778822 1.176 0.742554083 0.0377
1.761682243 2.357889922 1.176 0.689918591 0.0377
1.532520325 1.463226117 1.176 0.428139962 0.0377
1.696480221 2.11963162 1.176 0.620204212 0.0377
mass of the car (kg) lost force (N)
0.1726 0.433445917
0.1726 0.486081409
0.1726 0.747860038
0.1726 0.555795788
Acceleration and hanging mass
140 grams mass
Trial Hanging mass Time A (s) Time B (s) Time AB (s) V(a) m/s
added (kg)
Trial 1 0.14 0.0314 0.0198 0.2563 1.200636943
Trial 2 0.14 0.0319 0.0199 0.2614 1.181818182
Trial 3 0.14 0.03 0.0188 0.2452 1.256666667
Average 0.14 0.0311 0.0195 0.2543 1.213040597
V(b) m/s a (m/s*s) Hanging mass x g (m1+m2)a Length of car (m)
(N)
1.904040404 2.744453614 1.372 0.8579162 0.0377
1.894472362 2.726297552 1.372 0.852240615 0.0377
2.005319149 3.053231983 1.372 0.954440318 0.0377
1.934610638 2.841327716 1.372 0.888199044 0.0377
mass of the car (kg) Lost force (N)
0.1726 0.5140838
0.1726 0.519759385
0.1726 0.417559682
0.1726 0.483800956
Acceleration and hanging mass
160 grams mass
Trial Hanging mass Time A (s) Time B (s) Time AB (s) V(a) m/s
added (kg)
Trial 1 0.16 0.0285 0.0191 0.23 1.322807018
Trial 2 0.16 0.0292 0.0196 0.2355 1.29109589
Trial 3 0.16 0.0301 0.0219 0.2351 1.252491694
Average 0.16 0.02927 0.0202 0.233533 1.288798201
V(b) m/s a (m/s*s) Hanging mass x g (m1+m2) a Length of car (m)
(N)
1.97382199 2.830499878 1.568 0.941424259 0.0377
1.923469388 2.685237781 1.568 0.893110086 0.0377
1.721461187 1.994766027 1.568 0.66345918 0.0377
1.872917521 2.503501228 1.568 0.832664509 0.0377
mass of the car (kg) Frictional force (N)
0.1726 0.626575741
0.1726 0.674889914
0.1726 0.90454082
0.1726 0.735335491

Acceleration and hanging mass

Analysis and Results
Variables:
Independent: the hanging mass or the force pushing down
Dependent: The acceleration of the car, the force pushing the car, the initial and final velocities of the
car at the photogates, the time it takes the car to pass the photogates and the time it takes the car to
get from A to B
Control: The mass and length of the car

Results:
Equation [8[ states that m1g = a (m1 + m2) + f

Equation [1] states the F=ma

Rearranging this we can find mass equals force divided by acceleration
M=F÷a

Going back to equation [8] we can find that it takes the shape of a linear equation
Y= mx + b
m1g = (m1 + m2) a + f

Where the slope is the total mass of the system, and the y intercept is the frictional force
Rise (m 1 g)
If we plot m1g against acceleration, then the slope would be = = m going back to equation
Run a
[1]

We can find the total mass by simply adding the mass of the car and the set of the masses which equals
F
= 0.7783 kg When assuming there is no friction (since the equation is + f) dividing by which equals
A
should give us mass.

Since the equation is a (m1 + m2) + f then the y intercept would be the frictional force.
We can find b by taking the difference of the m 1g and (m1 + m2) a (assuming that the only lost force was
due to friction which is not the case because of the collisions mentioned in the errors section).
The average of all the lost forces would equal 0.56 N

So, the calculated measurements are

m1g = a (m1 + m2) + f
y = mx + b
m = 0.7783 Kg
b = 0.56 N

The graph next page shows the experimental result

 1.8

1.6 f(x) = 0.54 x

1.4 f(x) = 0.29 x + 0.58

Hanging mass x g (N)

R² = 0.65

1.2

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

Accelecration (ms^-2)

final Results

As shown from the graph, when there is no energy loss, the slope which is the mass = 0.543kg
±0.0288kg
When friction is present, the y intercept is 0.5822N ±0.02911 N
(Uncertainty found using the percentage uncertainty provided earlier)
The error bars in the graph show the uncertainties discussed in the errors section

Conclusion:
 My hypothesis was correct Newton’s second law was verified.
 The actual value for force lost due to friction was 0.56 N and the experimental value was 0.543N
in indicating an accurate measure with a percentage error of only 3.03%
 The actual value for mass was 0.7783 kg and the found value was 0.543 kg indicating an
inaccurate measure with percentage error of 30.23%
 The percentage uncertainty for both found values equals 5% which indicates a precise measure.
 There were many ways we could have limited uncertainty. first should be fixing the photogates
with tape or nailing them to the table since most errors were due to movement. Second would
be using a more quality toy car where it can move on the track more smoothly without tilting to
any side. Another source of uncertainty was the swinging mass. This can be limited by installing
a wheel that can hold the string in place as the car was accelerating and preventing it from
swinging.
  Instead of tying the string to each mass and wasting time, we could have used a weight hanger
and added Its mass to the hanging mass when calculating the total vertical force
 Reflection:
- I find this experiment to be an overall success since despite many assumptions and errors
we managed to get accurate and precise results
- I learned that Excel is a great tool for plotting and managing large numerical quantities
- I learned that uncertainties should not be underestimated since they can change the course
of the entire experiment if not taken into consideration.
Work cited:

Diagram 1, FBD (1), Figure (1) where all found using NC State University Physics Department.
(2012). Newton's second law. Retrieved January 02, 2021, from
https://webassign.net/labsgraceperiod/ncsulcpmech2/lab_3/manual.html

All graphs, tables and pictures where taken by Omar Nizar and processed through excel