Hi-I have a question-we're studying Newton's Laws and my question is:
If I have a constant, non-zero force, how does the accleration change as the mass is changed.
I think it changes proportionally-yes, or no but I'm not sure why except to say that's the law
Yes, you're correct that the acceleration changes proportionally to the force when the mass is changed. This is known as Newton's second law of motion, which states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.
To understand why the acceleration changes proportionally when the mass is changed, we can use the mathematical equation for Newton's second law:
F = m * a
where F represents the net force applied to an object, m represents the mass of the object, and a represents the acceleration of the object.
If we rearrange the equation to solve for acceleration, it becomes:
a = F / m
From this equation, we can see that if we keep the force (F) constant and change the mass (m), the acceleration (a) will change proportionally. If the mass increases, the acceleration will decrease, and vice versa. This means that a larger mass will require a greater force to achieve the same acceleration compared to a smaller mass.
So, in summary, according to Newton's second law, the acceleration of an object changes proportionally to the force when the mass is changed.