Laws of Motion Vocab

4. The rate at which a body moves; a scalar quantity.
6. Force A contact force that is perpendicular to the surface that an object makes contact with.
9. Experiment The goal of a thought experiment is to explore potential consequences of the principle in question without performing the experiment.
14. Multiplier Devices that increase the speed of, or distance travelled by, an object.
15. The rate of change of a body’s velocity, including its direction; acceleration is a vector quantity – a body can accelerate by moving faster or slower, or by changing direction.
17. Body Diagram A diagram of an object and its surroundings with arrows indicating all the forces acting on it.
18. Force The vector sum of all the forces that act upon an object.
19. Any object, generally in studies of motion.

1. Second Law The law described by the equation; F = ma.
2. The shortest distance from the initial position to the final position with a direction given; a vector quantity.
3. The speed of a body, including its direction, velocity is a vector quantity.
5. Third Law The law that states that all objects continue with constant motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force.
7. Complete path travelled by an object; a scalar quantity.
8. The degree of reproducibility or agreement between repeated measurements.
10. A simple device involving a solid arm and a fulcrum, which can move to multiply a force applied to one part.
11. How close the measured value is to the true value.
12. First Law The law that states ‘for every action force there is an equal and opposite reaction force’; if A pushes on B, then B pushes back on A.
13. The property of a body affected by a gravitational field; also the inertia of a body.
16. A mathematical quantity that describes a magnitude and direction.