Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to those forces.
Kinematics: The study of motion without considering the forces that cause it.
Force: A push or pull on an object that changes its motion.
Newton's First Law: Also known as the law of inertia, states that an object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Newton's Second Law: Defines the relationship between the force applied to an object and its resulting acceleration; force equals mass times acceleration (F=ma).
Newton's Third Law: Also known as the law of action-reaction, states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Friction: A force that opposes motion between two surfaces that are in contact; can be static or kinetic.
Inclined planes: A surface that is at an angle to the horizontal; affects the force required to move an object up or down the plane.
Circular motion: Motion in a circular path, often caused by centripetal force.
Momentum: A measure of how difficult it is to stop an object's motion; momentum equals mass times velocity (p=mv).
Energy: The ability of an object to do work; can be in the form of kinetic, potential, or thermal energy.
Work: The transfer of energy to an object through the application of a force over a distance; work equals force times distance (W=Fd).
Power: The rate at which work is done; power equals work divided by time (P=W/t).
Conservation of energy: The principle that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or converted from one form to another.
Impulse: The change in momentum that occurs when a force acts on an object for a certain amount of time; impulse equals force times time (J=Ft).
Elastic and inelastic collisions: Describe what happens to the momentum of two objects after they collide; in an elastic collision, the momentum is conserved, while in an inelastic collision, some of the momentum is lost.
Newton's First Law of Motion: Also known as the law of inertia, this law states that an object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion with a constant velocity, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.
Newton's Second Law of Motion: This law states that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the force applied to it, and inversely proportional to its mass. This law can be expressed mathematically as F = ma, where F is force, m is mass, and a is acceleration.
Newton's Third Law of Motion: This law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In other words, whenever one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force back on the first object.