Laws of Motion

• Galileo Galilei: Galileo first of all said that object move with a constant speed when no forces act on them.

→ This means if an object is moving on a frictionless path and no other force is acting upon it, the object would be moving forever. That is, there is no unbalanced force working on the object. But practically it is not possible for any object.

→ Force of friction, force of air and many other forces are always acting upon an object.

Newton’s Laws of Motion

Newton studied the ideas of Galileo and gave the three laws of motion. These laws are known as Newton’s laws of motion.

Newton’s First Law of Motion (Law of Inertia)

→ Any object remains in the state of rest or in uniform motion along a straight line, until it is compelled to change the state by applying external force.

Explanation: If any object is in the state of rest, then it will remain in rest until a external force is applied to change its state. Similarly, an object will remain in motion until any external force is applied over it to change its state.

This means all objects resist to in changing their state. The state of any object can be changed by applying external forces only, this property is called inertia.

• Newton’s First Law of Motion in Everyday Life

(i) A person standing in a bus falls backward when bus starts moving suddenly.

→ This happens because the person and bus both are in rest while bus is not moving, but as the bus starts moving, the legs of the person start moving along with bus but rest portion of his body has the tendency to remain in rest. Because of this, the person falls backward; if he is not alert.

(ii) A person standing in a moving bus falls forward if driver applies brakes suddenly.

→ This happens because when bus is moving, the person standing in it is also in motion along with bus. But when driver applies brakes the speed of bus decreases suddenly or bus comes in the state of rest suddenly, in this condition the legs of the person which are in contact with the bus come in rest while the rest part of his body have the tendency to remain in motion. Because of this person falls forward if he is not alert.

(iii) Before hanging the wet clothes over laundry line, usually many jerks are given to the clothes to get them dried quickly. Because of jerks, droplets of water from the pores of the cloth falls on the ground and reduced amount of water in clothes dries them quickly.

→ This happens because when suddenly clothes are made in motion by giving jerks, the water droplets in it have the tendency to remain in rest and they are separated from clothes and fall on the ground.

(iv) When the pile of coin on the carom-board is hit by a striker, coin only at the bottom moves away leaving rest of the pile of coin at same place.

→ This happens because when the pile is struck with a striker, the coin at the bottom comes in motion while rest of the coin in the pile has the tendency to remain in the rest and they vertically falls the carom-board and remain at same place.

Conservation of momentum

If the external force on a system is zero, the momentum of the system remains constant i.e., in an isolated system, the total momentum remains conserved.
Suppose A and B are two balls, they have mass m1 and m2 and initial velocities u1 and u2 as shown in above figure before collision. The two bodies collide and force is exerted by each body. There is change in their velocities due to collision.