February 22, 2025 [RAILWAY EXAM NOTES FOR SCIENCE MOTION]

Motion, Force, And laws of Motion

❖The change of position or the movement of any object from one position to another position with
respect to the observer is called Motion. It can be described in terms of the distance moved or
displacement.

❖ Distance is the actual path travelled by the object from its initial point to final point, and it is a
scalar quantity.

❖ Displacement is the shortest straight line path between initial and final positions. If the initial and
final positions are the same, then the displacement is zero.

❖ Distance depends upon path but displacement does not.

❖ Distance is greater than or equal to displacement they are equal only when in straight line
motion, without taking a U-turn.

❖ The SI Unit of both distance and displacement is Metre (m)

Speed and Velocity

Speed is the distance travelled by an object per unit of time.

Speed = Distance travelled/Time taken

❖ Average speed, the ratio of total distance travelled to the total time taken by the body to cover
it, is known as the average speed.

Average speed = Total distance travelled/Total time taken

❖ Instantaneous Speed is the speed of the object at a particular moment in time.

❖ Velocity is the displacement of the body per unit time.

Velocity = Displacement of object/Time taken

❖ Average Velocity: the ratio of the total displacement to the total time taken by the body is the
average velocity.

Average Velocity = Total Displacement/Total time taken

❖Instantaneous Velocity is the velocity of an object in motion at a particular point in time.

“Speed is a “Scalar quantity”, and its SI unit is metre/ sec, while on the other hand, Velocity is a
“Vector quantity”, and its SI unit is metre/sec.

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 February 22, 2025 [RAILWAY EXAM NOTES FOR SCIENCE MOTION]

“EXAMINERS FAVOURITE”
 Velocity has both magnitude and direction while speed has only magnitude and no direction.
Velocity has the same direction as displacement.
 Average speed is always greater than the average velocity except in the case of straight line
motion without a U-turn, where both are equal.
 When a body returns to its initial position, the average velocity will be zero but the average
speed will not be zero.
 When the direction of motion changes, the velocity also changes.

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Acceleration
“Acceleration is the measure of change of velocity with respect to time. It is also called the
rate of change of velocity.”

Acceleration = (Final velocity – Initial velocity)/Total time taken

❖ SI unit of acceleration is metre/sec2. It is a vector quantity.

❖ Acceleration has the same direction as velocity if the velocity increases. Whereas it has opposite
direction as velocity if velocity decreases, and in this case, the acceleration is negative. Negative
acceleration is also known as Retardation or De-acceleration.

❖ When the velocity of a body changes by equal amounts in equal time intervals, the acceleration is
said to be uniform motion.

❖ When the velocity of a body changes by unequal amounts in equal time intervals, the
acceleration is said to be non-uniform motion.

Graphical representation of Motion

1. Distance-Time Graph: The change in the position of an object with respect to time can be
represented on the distance-time graph. This graph is used to calculate the speed of the body.

(a) Straight Line Graph: The distance time graph for a body moving at a uniform speed is
always a straight line, as the body moves equal distance in equal time intervals.

(b) Curved Graph: When the distance time graph is plotted for an object moving at a non-
uniform speed, the result will not be a straight line but instead it will be a curved line. The rising
trend of the slope shows the increasing trend of velocity.

2. Velocity-Time Graph:

(a) If a body moves with uniform velocity and no acceleration, then the velocity-time graph
for this body will be a straight line parallel to the time axis.

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 February 22, 2025 [RAILWAY EXAM NOTES FOR SCIENCE MOTION]

(b) If the object moves with a non-uniform speed, then the speed- time graph will be a
straight line. The pattern of the slope will depend on the sign of the velocity.

Circular Motion
 Uniform circular motion is the motion in which an object moves on a circular path with the
same speed.
 Non-uniform motion is the motion in which an object moves on a circular path with a
varying speed.

Force
 A force is a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object’s interaction with
another object. It is the force which enables us to do any work. The pull or push in
order to do something is the force.
 There are mainly two types of force:

1. Balanced Force: If the result of the applied forces is equal to zero, the force is called a balanced
force. Balanced forces do not cause any change in the state of an object. Balanced forces are equal
in magnitude and opposite in direction.

For example, in a tug of war, if both the teams apply similar magnitude of forces in opposite
directions, the rope does not move on either side. This happens because of balanced forces
that make the resultant of applied forces zero.

2. Unbalanced Force: If the resultant of applied forces is greater than zero, the forces are called
unbalanced forces. An object in rest can be moved by applying unbalanced forces.

 Force is a quantity that is measured using the standard metric unit known as the Newton.
 A Newton is abbreviated by ‘N’
1 Newton = 1 kg m/s2

Force is a vector quantity. To describe force you have to describe both magnitude and the direction.

Momentum
The power of motion of an object is called the momentum.

 It is the product of the mass and the velocity. It is denoted by ‘p’.

 Momentum = Mass × Velocity or, p = m × v.
 Momentum is directly proportional to the mass and the velocity.
 Momentum increases with the increase in the mass as well as the velocity.
 SI unit of Momentum is kg m/s.

Example: - A person gets injured by a moving object, let’s say a stone; because of the momentum of
the stone. A small bullet when fired from a gun can kill a person because of the momentum of the
bullet.

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 February 22, 2025 [RAILWAY EXAM NOTES FOR SCIENCE MOTION]

Newton’s law of Motion

 The relationship between forces and motion was first fully explained by Sir Isaac Newton in
the sixteenth century.

1. Newton’s First Law of Motion: Any object remains in the state of rest or of uniform motion along
a straight line, until it is compelled to change its state by an external force.

 Inertia is the tendency of an object to remain in its original state of motion in the absence of
a resultant force. Every material object has inertia and the amount of matter present in the
object.
 The natural tendency of objects to resist a change in their state of rest or of uniform motion
is called inertia.
 The mass of an object is the measure of its Inertia.
 Its SI unit is kilogram (kg).

2. Newton’s Second Law: It states that the rate of change of momentum of a body is proportional to
the resultant force acting on it, and the change takes place in the direction of the force. Newton’s
second law describes the change of motion when a non-zero net force is applied on an object. The
amount of momentum, which an object has, depends on its mass and velocity.

 The linear momentum (p), of a body is the product of its mass (m), and its velocity (v).
 The more momentum an object has, the harder it is to stop and the greater effect or
impact it will experience if it is brought to rest.

3. Newton’s Third Law: It states that if a body A exerts a force on a body B, then body B exerts a
force of equal magnitude but in the opposite direction, on body A. In other words, every action has
an equal and opposite reaction.

(a) It does not matter which force is called action and which is called reaction. downloaded from

(b) The two forces must be of the same type, that is, if one is an electrical force, then the other must
also be electrical.

(c) The two forces act on different bodies. Thus they do not produce zero resultant force (do not
cancel each other) on any one object.

Gravitation is the force of attraction that acts between all the objects because of their mass, that
is, the amount of matter they are made up with. It is because of gravitation that objects which are
near the earth are pulled towards it. The gravitational attraction that an object has for objects
near it is called the Force of Gravity

Newton’s law of Gravitation/the law of universal law of Gravitation

It states that any two bodies having mass are attracted to each other with a force directly
proportional to the product of their mass and inversely proportional to the objects anywhere in the
universe. Therefore, the law is said to be universal.

The mathematical formula for the law of gravitation is

F = Gm1m2/d2

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 February 22, 2025 [RAILWAY EXAM NOTES FOR SCIENCE MOTION]

F = Force,

G is the Universal Gravitational Constant

m1, m2 = mass of first and second body respectively, and d = the distance between the objects.

 The value of G, the Universal Gravitational Constant is 6.673 × 10–11 Nm2 kg–2.
 The value of G was found out by Henry Cavendish.

Newton’s law of gravitation led to many more discoveries. The most important one is the discovery
of the planet Neptune. Using this law, the French astronomer Urbain Leverrier and British
astronomer John Couch, each independently discovered the existence of a distant planet that was
disturbing the orbit of Uranus, and hence Neptune was found in 1894, in an orbit close to what was
predicted.

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