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Unit 2 Vocabulary
Honors Physical Science (Malone)
Term | Definition |
---|---|
Reference point | The starting point you chose to describe the location, or position, of an object. |
Position | An object's distance and direction from a reference point. |
Motion | The process of changing position. |
Displacement | The difference between the initial, or starting, position and the final position. |
Speed | A measure of the distance an object travels in a given amount of time. |
Velocity | The speed and the direction of a moving object. |
Vector | A quantity that has both magnitude and direction. |
Acceleration | A measure of the change in velocity during a period of time. |
Force | A push or pull on an object. |
Contact Force | A push or pull on one object by another object that is touching it. |
Newton's first law of Motion | An object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion unless a force acts on the object. |
Newton's second law of Motion | The acceleration of an object is equal to the net force exerted on the object divided by the object's mass. |
Newton's third law of Motion | When an object applies a force on another object, the second object applies a force of the same strength on the first object but the force is in the opposite direction. |
Friction | A contact force that resists the sliding motion of two surfaces that are touching. |
Free-body diagram | A simple model to understand what will happen to an object due to a force. |
Net force | The combination of all he forces acting on an object. |
Force pair | The forces two objects apply to each other. |
Normal force | The force that pushes perpendicular to the object's surface. |
Elastic Collision | When colliding objects bounce off each other. |
Non-contact force | A force that one object applies to another without touching it. |
Gravity | An attractive force that exists between all objects that have mass. |
Field | A region of space that has a physical quantity (such as a force) at every point. |