Annie has a soccer ball and a kickball. She kicks each ball with the same force. The soccer ball accelerates at 3 m/s2, and the kickball accelerates at 5 m/s2.
Use Newton’s laws to describe why the kickball has a greater acceleration.
According to Newton's second law of motion, the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass. In this case, both balls are kicked with the same force, but the kickball has a smaller mass than the soccer ball.
Therefore, since the kickball has a smaller mass, it experiences a greater acceleration than the soccer ball when the same force is applied to both. This is because the kickball has less inertia to overcome in order to accelerate, resulting in a greater acceleration.