A Frictionless world A Discussion of how this fits in with Newton’s first law of motion

What happens in a world without friction? What did you notice happening when an object did not interact with anything? It keeps going in a straight line

What happens when it comes in contact with a force? It changes it’s motion (slows down, speeds up, changes direction)

This is Newton’s First Law of Motion An object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion at constant speed and in a straight line unless acted on by an unbalanced force.

We can break his law into two parts: Part 1: Objects at rest Part 2: Objects in motion Bumper car analogy

What the law really means. Objects moving at a certain velocity will continue to move forever at the same speed and in the same direction unless some unbalanced force acts on it.

If that’s the case, you should be able to give your table a shove and send it flying across the room. But does this happen? No.

Because of this observation, Aristotle thought that all objects wanted to be at rest.

It was Newton who examined Aristotle’s thinking and took into account the force due to friction which helped him formulate his First Law of motion. If friction is not present, then an object would continue the same path forever.

Dry Ice demo: Play with the dry ice. Allow it to sit for a few minutes on top of the table. It is an object at rest. Carefully give your dry ice a shove with a spoon to set it in motion and watch it’s motion across the table. Draw it’s path in your notebook. While the dry ice is still in motion, tap the dry ice and describe what happens to it’s motion in words and with a picture.

Newton’s First law is often summed up in one sentence: Matter resists any change in motion. The tendency of all objects to resist any change in motion is called inertia. Mass is a measure of inertia