Newton's Laws Demos


Hi guys,

Demos for his week:

There is a Newton scale and an apple. You can show that an apple weighs approx 1 N. In fact it weighs 1.5 N, and its a small to medium size apple. So you can tell them that everything grows bigger these dyas with improved agriculture.

There is an airtrack set up with one glider to illustrate constant velocity with no forces acting. The other glider has a string and a 2.5 gram penny attached. With the string over the pulley the glider will accelerate over a distance of 1 m, and it takes about 5 sec. Note the glider mass is 300 grams. So you can easily calculte the acceleration (it comes very close). There is a timer provided to measure the time, but you may alternatively ask students with stopwatches to time it.

Newton's 3rd law: There are two low friction "inertial carts". The idea is to have 2 students sit on them and ask one to give the other a push. The students, or you and a student (there may be students who will want to give you a shove after the mideterm) should be approx the same size. The result is that no matter who pushes, both carts fly off with same speed.

Then ask a very large student (do not use the word "fat") and a very small student to try, and see the results.

Videos: There are not to many good or relevant ones, but take a look yourself at chs 11 and up.

Noteworthy:

Ch 15: Tablecloth jerk

Ch 16: Eggs and pizza

Ch 20: Action-reaction

Ch 21: Action reaction