Wei created an animation where a ball is thrown straight up in the air. What force acts upon the ball to make it slow down as it reaches its highest point and then change direction before falling back to Earth?
Question 7 options:
mass
inertia
momentum
gravity
gravity
The force that acts upon the ball to make it slow down as it reaches its highest point and then change direction before falling back to Earth is gravity.
The force that acts upon the ball to make it slow down as it reaches its highest point and then change direction before falling back to Earth is gravity.
Gravity is a force that attracts objects toward each other. In this case, the force of gravity is acting on the ball, pulling it down towards the Earth. As the ball is thrown straight up in the air, gravity slows it down until it eventually comes to a stop at its highest point. At this point, the force of gravity has overcome the initial upward momentum and starts pulling the ball back down towards the Earth, causing it to change direction and accelerate towards the ground.
To arrive at this answer, we can eliminate the other options one by one:
- Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object and does not directly relate to the force acting upon the ball in this scenario.
- Inertia is the resistance of an object to changes in its state of motion. While inertia is related to the behavior of the ball, it does not directly explain why the ball slows down and changes direction.
- Momentum refers to the quantity of motion of an object and is closely related to its mass and velocity. However, momentum alone does not explain why the ball slows down and changes direction.
Thus, the correct answer is gravity because it is the force that acts upon the ball to slow it down and change its direction as it reaches its highest point and falls back to Earth.