Page 1: Newton's Laws and Vehicle Safety
This comprehensive page covers the fundamental principles of motion and their practical applications in vehicle safety. The content begins with Newton's third law of motion, which states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Definition: Newton's first law establishes that objects maintain their state of rest or uniform motion unless acted upon by an external force.
Example: A practical demonstration involves a book resting on a table - the book pushes down while the table pushes up with equal force.
The page details a required practical experiment examining force and acceleration relationships:
- Independent Variable: Pulling force
- Dependent Variable: Acceleration
- Controlled Variables: Trolley mass and friction elimination
Highlight: Safety features in vehicles are specifically designed to extend collision time, thereby reducing impact force through momentum change management.
Vocabulary: Inertia is defined as an object's resistance to changes in its motion state, calculated as Force divided by acceleration.
The document also covers the Law of conservation of momentum, explaining how momentum before and after collisions remains constant.
Definition: Momentum (p) is calculated as mass (m) multiplied by velocity (v), measured in kgm/s.
The stopping distance section breaks down into:
- Thinking distance: Affected by human factors (tiredness, drugs, alcohol, distractions)
- Braking distance: Influenced by mechanical and environmental factors (road conditions, tire condition, weather)
Highlight: When brakes are applied, kinetic energy is converted to heat energy through friction.
