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Definitions
science
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Acceleration | A measure of the change in velocity during a period of time. |
| Force | A push or a pull on an object. |
| Contact Force | A push or a pull on one object by another object that is touching it. |
| Friction | A force that resists the sliding motion of two surfaces that are touching. |
| Free-Body Diagram | A simple to model to understand systems of objects with any amount of applied force. |
| Net Force | The sum of all the forces acting on an object. |
| Newton's second law of motion | The acceleration of an object equals the net Force on the object divided by the object's mass. |
| Newton's first law of motion | An object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted on by a force. |
| Reference Point | The starting point you choose 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, positon, and the final position. |
| Speed | A measure of the distance an object travels in a given amount of time. |
| Velocity | The speed and direction of a moving object. |
| Vector | A quantity that has both magnitude and direction. |
| Inertia | To resist any change in motion |
| Newton's Third Law of Motion | Newton's third law of motion states that 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. |
| Force Pair | A force pair is the forces two objects apply to each other. |
| Normal Force | The normal Force is the force that pushes perpendicular to the object's surface. |
| Elastic Collision | When controlling objects bounce off each other. |
| Inelastic Collision | An inelastic collision is a collision where total kinetic energy is not conserved, but momentum is. |
| Non-Contact Force | A non-contact force is a force that one object can apply to another object without touching it. |
| Gravity | Gravity is an attractive force that exists between all objects that have mass. |
| Field | A field is a region of space that has a physical quantity (such as a force) at every point. |
| Weight | Weight is the gravitational force exerted on an object. |