Motion
Even if we have not studied physics in high school, we will still come across the concept of motion. It forms the foundation of the subject of physics. In the middle school itself, we will come across motion.
There are a lot of differences in the level of questions and the concepts involved when we study physics in middle school and high school. The terms involved in both the levels are almost the same though. Some of the terms that are involved are initial velocity, final velocity, acceleration, displacement and time.
What is motion?
The definition of motion can be very easy to understand. When we say that an object is in motion, we generally mean that the object is moving from one place to another with respect to time. Further, in this article we will discuss everything from the different equations of motion to the various types of graphs involved. Basically, we can say that an object is in motion when we can assign a frame of reference to it.
Like we can say that the train is in motion because of two reasons. The two reasons are that it is moving from one station to another, so it is obviously moving and the second reason is that if we are standing far away and we see the train moving then we can say that the train is moving with us being the frame of reference and in the earlier case, the station was the frame of reference.
Laws of Motion
There are three laws of motion that were discovered by the great English physicist, Isaac Newton, and these laws are very important if we want to go into the depth of the concept of motion. The third law or the law of reaction is the most important law of motion.
The first law of motion is the most basic law of motion. This law is also called the law of inertia. Inertia is the term which states that the object in rest remains at rest and the object in motion remains in motion unless an external push is applied. So this law states that if an object is in motion, then it remains in motion and the object at rest remains at rest if no external push is applied. So the definition of inertia and the first law of motion are the same.
Second and the Third Law of Motion
The second law of motion is also called the law of acceleration. This law is basically based on the equation or the statement that force applied to a body is equal to the mass of the body multiplied by the acceleration by which the body is moving. So this law states that if the force acting on the body is a positive whole number or in other words not zero then the acceleration by which the body is moving will be along the direction of the resultant.
The third law of motion is the most important law of motion. This law is also called the law of reaction. If we are to state the exact statement of the law then we can say that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This means that whenever an object is being pushed in a direction, then that same object is pulled in the opposite direction. We can say that the force applied on the object also depends upon the direction of force.
Equations of Motion
There are three laws of motion and these are the gateway to get into the deep conceptual problems in motion. The first equation of motion involves four different variables and the variables are initial velocity, final velocity, acceleration and time. The relationship between them is that final velocity equals the addition of initial velocity and the product of acceleration and time.
The second law of motion involves variables like distance, initial velocity, time and acceleration. The relationship between these variables is that the distance travelled by any particle is equal to the addition of the product of initial velocity and time and the product of acceleration and time. This law of motion is one of the most important laws of motion and covers a lot of concepts including the distance and displacement concept.
The third law of motion is one of the important laws as it establishes a relation between acceleration and velocity. The relationship states that if you subtract the square of initial velocity from the square of final velocity then we get the product of acceleration and distance and this product should be multiplied by two in the end.
The types of motion
There are different types of motion namely, uniform motion and non- uniform motion. When an object travels equal distances at equal intervals of time, it is said to be undergoing uniform motion. If the object travels unequal distances at equal intervals of time then it is said to undergo non- uniform motion.
Projectile Motion
The concept of projectile motion is one of the most important concepts in motion. It is that type of concept which comes into play when we throw any object in a circular path. Some of the terms involved in this are the time of flight, maximum height and the horizontal range. These small topics in this type of motion are important because it tells the nature of the projectile.
Conclusion
Motion is one of the most important topics in physics and should be learned in depth before going to the further parts of mechanics in the section of physics.