A student observes that when his mother's cup of coffee sits on the dashboard of her car and the car goes around a sharp curve, the coffee splashes out. Construct an argument to support the claim that Newton's Law of Motion can be used to explain this observation.
Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. In the case of the coffee cup on the dashboard of the car, the coffee will stay in place as long as the car is moving in a straight line or at a constant speed.
However, when the car goes around a sharp curve, the car and everything inside it is subjected to a centripetal force, which is the force that causes an object to move in a circular path. In this case, the centripetal force acts on the car and the coffee cup, causing the coffee to slosh out of the cup and spill onto the dashboard.
Newton's Second Law of Motion states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass. In this situation, the net force acting on the coffee cup is the centripetal force, which causes the coffee to accelerate and spill out of the cup due to its mass.
Therefore, by applying Newton's laws of motion to this observation, we can explain why the coffee splashes out of the cup when the car goes around a sharp curve. The centripetal force acting on the car and the coffee cup causes the coffee to move in a circular path and spill out due to its acceleration and mass.