Unit Six: Newton's Laws and Unbalanced Forces

So basically, we didn't learn anything new in class but were instructed to do this blog so here it goes…

Unit 6, its about unbalanced forces and Newton's Laws. The opposite of unbalanced forces are balanced forces and balanced forces are, for example:

When a cellphone is placed on a table, and two forces are acting upon said cellphone. One is Earth's gravitational pull and it exerts a downward force. The other is the normal force or the component perpendicular to the surface of the contact, which in this case is the surface of the table, which exerts contact force between the cellphone and the table. The normal pushes upward on the cellphone. These forces are of equal magnitude and are moving in opposite directions, so the forces on the cellphone are balanced.

Now unbalanced forces are, for example:

When the cellphone is given a little push and set into motion from a rest. There are three forces acting upon the moving cellphone. One is Earth's gravitational pull, exerting a downward force on the phone.  The second is the normal force and it exerts an upward pull. The last force is friction, a force that opposes motion or potential motion on an object,  and it is directed opposite the cellphone's motion and will eventually cause the phone to slow down. The gravitational pull and the normal force are of equal magnitude and balance each other out but because there is no force that is of equal magnitude and of opposite direction there is nothing to balance the frictional force. What it comes down to is that the cellphone is not at equilibrium and then accelerates because unbalanced forces cause acceleration.

Here is an example of unbalanced forces, here I have a gift one of my friends got me (yes itʻs a ball, but itʻs the thought that counts), the ball was acted upon by a force that caused it to become unbalanced which led to its slow acceleration.... Well you get it... I hope :P


All of the information I found is from http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/u2l1d.cfm