Newtons First Law Questions

1.

Does the law of inertia pertain to moving objects, objects at rest or both?
Answer: Both. Things that are at rest want to stay at rest such as boulders and stubborn mules. Things
moving want to keep moving such as a charging elephant

2.

If you were in a spaceship and fired a cannonball into frictionless space, how much force would have to be
exerted on the ball to keep it moving once it has left the spaceship?
Answer: Absolutely none! Once the ball is sent out into space there is no drag to slow it down. The
cannonball would just keep going at the same speed until it hit something else, following Newton's first law
of motion.

3.

An elephant and a mouse both have the same weight - zero - in gravitation-free space. If they were
moving toward you with the same speed, would they bump into you with the same effect?
Answer: They have zero weight in the absence of gravity, but they still have mass. Exactly what mass is, is
not fully understood, but it can be thought of as the amount of 'stuff' that comprises an object. An
elephant has much more mass than a mouse- ie, there is a lot more of it. So, if, say, the elephant is 1000
times the mass of the mouse, then being hit by an elephant at a given speed will deliver the same clout as
being hit by 1000 mice at the same speed. Nope! The elephant, which has a larger mass, would apply more
force to you than the mouse. It has greater inertia and so it will continue to move while the mouse, with
smaller inertia, would stop faster when colliding with you.
This is because the effect of their impact depends not on their weight, but on their MOMENTUM. This is a
number equal to their mass x their speed. The more momentum an object has, the more kinetic energy it
carries, and it is the transfer of this energy that will actually do the damage when that elephant collides
with you. (The kinetic energy of an object of mass 'm' moving at speed 'v', is equal to [1/2 x m x v x v]

4.

In the cabin of a jetliner that cruises at 600 km/h, a pillow drops from an overhead rack.
Does a passenger walking up the aisle have to worry about the pillow slamming into her and knocking her
over?
Answer: Again, everything has inertia on the plane and so moves forward with the same velocity of the
plane. Even the air inside the plane is moving forward. Now if the front of the plane didnt have a window,
the wind would blow in through the hole and if you threw a pillow up, the strong wind would blow it towards
the back of the plane.
What is the horizontal speed of the pillow relative to the ground?
Answer: The horizontal speed of the pillow would be the same as the speed of the plane.
Relative to you inside the jetliner?
Answer: The horizontal speed relative to the inside of the plane would be zero.

5.

Many automobile passengers have suffered neck injuries when struck by cars from behind. How does
Newton's law of inertia apply here? How do headrests help to guard against this type of injury?

6.

Suppose you place a ball in the middle of a pick-up truck, and then accelerate the truck forward. Describe
the motion of the ball relative to the ground? Describe its motion relative to the pick-up.
Answer: It rolls to the rear of the trucks bed.

7.

If an elephant were chasing you, its enormous mass would be most threatening. But if you zigzagged, its
mass would be to your advantage. Why?
Answer: You would have trouble changing directions quickly; that's a property of inertia: the resistance to
acceleration (speeding up, slowing down, or changing directions). The more mass, the more inertia.

8.

Two closed containers look the same, but one is packed with lead and the other with a few feathers. How
could you determine which has more mass if you and the containers were orbiting in a weightless condition
in outer space?
Answer: if both were pushed with the same force, the one moving faster would have the greater mass,
which would be the lead.

9.

If suddenly the force of gravity of the sun stopped acting on the planets, in what kind of path would the
planets move?
Answer: they would move in a straight line, as if you were swinging a mass at the end of a string and the
string breaks.

10.

A helium balloon is held by its string in a car with the windows rolled up. The car, initially at rest,
accelerates forward. Which direction does the balloon move? Explain.
Answer: The balloon moves forward. The air in the car is forced to the back and since helium is lighter
than air, it would be forced forward.