According to the third law of motion when we push on an object, the object pushes back on us with an equal and opposite force. If the object is a massive truck parked along the roadside, it will probably not move. A student justifies this by answering that the two opposite and equal forces cancel each other. Comment on this logic and explain why the truck does not move.
Since the truck has a very high mass, the static friction between the road and the truck is high. When pushing the truck with a small force, the frictional force cancels out the applied force and the truck does not move. This implies that the two forces are equal in magnitude but opposite in direction (since the person pushing the truck is not displaced when the truck doesn’t move). Therefore, the student’s logic is correct.
Answered by Shivani Kumari | 2 years agoA motorcar of mass 1200 kg is moving along a straight line with a uniform velocity of 90 km/h. Its velocity is slowed down to 18 km/h in 4 s by an unbalanced external force. Calculate the acceleration and change in momentum. Also calculate the magnitude of the force required
A hammer of mass 500 g, moving at 50 m s-1, strikes a nail. The nail stops the hammer in a very short time of 0.01 s. What is the force of the nail on the hammer
Two persons manage to push a motorcar of mass 1200 kg at a uniform velocity along a level road. The same motorcar can be pushed by three persons to produce an acceleration of 0.2 m s-2. With what force does each person push the motorcar? (Assume that all persons push the motorcar with the same muscular effort)
The following is the distance-time table of an object in motion:
| Time (seconds) | Distance (meters) |
| 0 | 0 |
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 8 |
| 3 | 27 |
| 4 | 84 |
| 5 | 125 |
| 6 | 216 |
| 7 | 343 |
(a) What conclusion can you draw about the acceleration? Is it constant, increasing, decreasing, or zero?
(b) What do you infer about the forces acting on the object?
How much momentum will a dumb-bell of mass 10 kg transfer to the floor if it falls from a height of 80 cm? Take its downward acceleration to be 10 ms–2 .