Everyone that’s been to school has done an experiment of dropping objects of the same weight but different mass from the same height to see if they fall at the same rate or not.  This is a law of motion.  There are three basic laws that everyone in elementary school learns.  Sir Isaac Newton developed these rules.  They have been tested so many times that they are now called Newton’s three laws of motion.

    The first law is an object in motions stays in motion, with the same direction and speed and an object at rest stays at rest.  What this means is that if you spin a top it will spin and go in the same direction until something stops it, like gravity.  If you put a top on a table and don’t do anything to it, it will stay there until you move it or spin it.  If you ever saw a picture or video of someone working in space you will notice that their tools float.  This is because there is no force to move them.  If they were working on the roof of a house and tried to put a tool  down, it might slide down the roof and into the gutter.  Gravity is the force that moves these objects.

    The second law is the acceleration of an object produced by a total of applied force is directly related to the magnitude of force, the same direction as the force and inversely, related to the mass of the object.  What does this mean?  It means that if you push two different object of different masses at the same pace, the effect on the smaller one is greater(or easier to push) then the one with the larger mass.  If you change the velocity, it will change it’s velocity in the direction of the force.  The acceleration is directly proportional to the force.  This means the harder you push, the more something accelerates.  Acceleration is proportional to the mass of an object.  This means the bigger the object, the more mass it has, it accelerates half as much.  If you look at the inside of a clock and watch the gears, the smaller ones go faster then the larger ones.  This is an example of the second law.

    Newton’s third law is for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  Think of the kick a gun has after its fired.  The force that pushed the bullet out of the gun is equal to the gun’s kick.  A simpler version is if you push on it, it will push you.

    Sir Isaac Newton worked in areas of mathematics and physics.  In 1663, at 23, he developed the theories of gravity and twenty years later in 1686 his three laws of motion.  We use these laws every day and don’t even think about it.  We exert forces on everything we touch.  Tapping the keys of a computer, rolling a ball across the floor, or just sleep.  It all exerts force on anther object.  So we now know that the physics class you took in high school was worth it. 

    Physics is used to make things we use every day safer, like cars, planes and trains.  They test these to see what is going to happen to them in different situations.  We even use physics to test out safety equipment for sports.  Helmets go through a series of tests before they are put on the market and deemed safe.  So the next time you come up with a problem, see if one of these laws fits.  Who knows, you might just surprise yourself and come up with a new idea for something.