A wooden box weighing 281 N is pushed across the floor by a workman who exerts a horizontal force of 166 N. If the force of friction between the box and the floor is 21 N, what is the acceleration (in meters/second^2) of the box?

the force that are acting on the box are1)normal force, gravational force, horizontal force, friction force. If you want to find the a, use the eq of new ton laws. F=MA. For the force you need to add friction force and horizontal force. But you don't know the mass of the object. So u need to find the mass by N-mg=0. After that plug in mass in the first eq and solve it. GOOD LUCK.

To find the acceleration of the box, we can use Newton's second law of motion.

Newton's second law states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass. The equation representing this relationship is:

F_net = ma

Where F_net represents the net force, m represents the mass of the object, and a represents the acceleration.

In this case, we can calculate the net force acting on the box by subtracting the force of friction from the applied force:

F_net = 166 N - 21 N
F_net = 145 N

Now, we need to calculate the mass of the box using the weight of the box and the acceleration due to gravity. The formula for weight is:

Weight = mass * acceleration due to gravity

Weight = 281 N

Since the acceleration due to gravity is approximately 9.8 m/s^2, we can rearrange the formula as follows:

mass = weight / acceleration due to gravity

mass = 281 N / 9.8 m/s^2
mass ≈ 28.67 kg

Now, we have all the necessary information to find the acceleration:

F_net = ma

145 N = 28.67 kg * a

Dividing both sides of the equation by the mass, we get:

a = 145 N / 28.67 kg
a ≈ 5.05 m/s^2

Therefore, the acceleration of the box is approximately 5.05 m/s^2.