Although an unbalanced force will give an object an acceleration, the magnitude of the acceleration is determined by two quantities: the magnitude of the force and the object's mass. It has been verified countless times that the acceleration is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force and inversely proportional to the object's mass. If we choose our units carefully, we can write this relationship, which we call Newton’s second law of motion, as follows: F = ma. We measure the mass (m) in kilograms and the acceleration (a) in meters per second 2 . The unbalanced force (Fnet ) is measured in newtons. 5. What are the equivalent basic SI units for the newton?
