SF 12103

Physics 1 (Mechanics)

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Chapter 1
Introduction

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 1.1 The Purpose of Physics

Importance:
To understand
and capable to
Aim: apply the
Provide an various
understanding concepts and
of the physical theories.
world by
Definition: developing
theories based
The branch of on experiments.
science concerned
with nature and
properties of matter
& energy. 3
 1.2 Dealing with Numbers
• During the course of problem solving, we will often encounter
numbers that are very large or very small.

• Scientific notation was invented to abbreviate extremely large or

extremely small numbers.

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 Table 1: Some common lengths and distances

Quantity Length or distance Quantity Length or distance

in meters (m) in meters (m)
Diameter of a 1 × 10-15 Height of the 443.2
proton Empire State
Building
Diameter of a 5.5 × 10-5 Distance from New 1,268,000
human hair York City to
Chicago
Thickness of a 6.4 × 10-5 Circumference of 4.00 × 107
sheet of paper the Earth
Diameter of a CD 0.12 Distance from Earth 1.5 × 1011
or DVD to the Sun

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 Exercise 1

• The number of people living on the earth in 2007 is estimated to

have been approximately 6,600,000,000. Express this number in
scientific notation.

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 1.3 Physical Quantities

Force

Velocity
Involve such
Basic law physical
quantities
Volume

Acceleration

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 Preferable
quantities in
mechanics

Other physical
quantities can be
constructed from
these three
quantities

Length (l) Mass (m) Time (t)

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 Measurements

Measurements of
physical quantities are
expressed in terms of Two major systems
units, which are
standardized values

SI (Système
International) English units
units
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 Table 2 : Fundamentals SI units

Base quantity Name of unit Symbol

Length metre m
Mass kilogram kg
Time second s
Electric current ampere A
Temperature kelvin K
Amount of mole mol
substance
Luminous intensity candela cd

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US Standard Units vs US Customary
Units

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 Table 3 : Dimensions and some units of
area, volume, velocity and acceleration

System Area (L2) Volume Velocity Acceleration

(L3) (L/T) (L/T2)
SI m2 m3 m/s m/s2
cgs cm2 cm3 cm/s cm/s2
U.S. ft2 ft3 ft/s ft/s2
customary

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 Check your
understanding
 1.4 Units
• The importance of unit is to communicate the result of a
measurement of a certain physical quantity.

• SI units are part of the metric system. the metric system is

convenient for scientific and engineering calculations because the
units are categorized by factors of 10.

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Table 4 : Metric prefixes for powers of 10 and their symbols

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 Unit Conversion
Table 4 : Common used English
measurements and their SI conversions

English unit SI unit Conversion

Mile Kilometer 1 mile = 1.609 km
Foot Meter 1 ft = 0.305 m
Inch Centimeter 1 inch = 2.54 cm
Pound Grams 1 lb = 453.59 g
Ounce Grams 1 oz = 28.35 g
Gallon Liter 1 gallon = 3.79 L
Celsius Kelvin 0 °C = 273.15 K

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17
 Exercise 2
• Find the number of inches in 1 mile.
Ans: 63 360 inches

• How many seconds are in 1 year? Express your answer in scientific

notation.
Ans: 3.1536 x 107 s

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 Dimensional Analysis

▪ Dimension denotes the physical nature of a quantity.

▪ The symbols used in this section to specify the dimensions of

length, mass and time are l, m, and t, respectively.

▪ Brackets [ ] will be used to denote the dimensions of a physical

quantity.

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Example
▪ The dimensions of velocity v

▪ The dimensions of area

▪ Dimensional analysis exemplifies the dimensions can be treated as

algebraic quantities.
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 Table 5 : Dimensions and some units of
area, volume, velocity and acceleration

System Area Volume Velocity Acceleratio

(L2) (L3) (L/T) n (L/T2)
SI m2 m3 m/s m/s2

cgs cm2 cm3 cm/s cm/s2

U.S. ft2 ft3 ft/s ft/s2

customary

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 Chapter 2
Motion, Forces and Newton’s
Laws

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 2.1 What is Motion?
• Dynamics is a study of motion and physical concepts such as
force and mass.
• Kinematics is a part of dynamics that describes motion without
regard to its causes.
• Kinematics in one dimension exemplifies the motion along a
straight line. This kind of motion involves the concepts of
displacement, velocity and acceleration.

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 Velocity and Speed
• Speed and velocity are related quantities, but they are not the
same. Speed tells how fast an object is moving, and it is always a
positive quantity (or perhaps zero).

• The velocity contains this information and in addition tells the

direction of motion.

• For one-dimensional motion, the direction of the velocity vector

must lie parallel to the x-axis.

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25
 Average Velocity
• Average velocity is the displacement during the interval divided
by the length of the interval.
• Average velocity is represents by the average slope of the
position-time curve.

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 Exercise 3
• A scientist is studying the biomechanics of the human body. She
determines the velocity of an experimental subject while he runs
along a straight line at a constant rate. The scientist starts the
stopwatch at the moment the runner passes a given point and
stops it after the runner has passed another point 20 m away. The
time interval indicated on the stopwatch is 4.0 s.

a) What is the runner’s velocity? Ans: 5.0 m/s

b) If the runner continues his motion after the stopwatch is
stopped, what is his position after 10 s has passed? Ans: 50 m
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 Instantaneous Velocity
• Instantaneous velocity signifies on how the position is changing
at a particular moment.
• Instantaneous velocity is represents by the slope of the position-
time curve at the point of interest.

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 Exercise 4
• A car is traveling on a long, straight road. It starts at the origin at
t=0 and moves with a velocity of +9.0 m/s for 30 s. After stopping
for 10 s at a crosswalk to allow a pedestrian to cross the road, it
then moves at +6.0 m/s for another 20 s.

a) What is the final position of the car? Ans: 390 m

b) What is the car’s average velocity? Ans: 6.5 m/s

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 Acceleration
• Acceleration is related to how the velocity changes with time.
• Example is the car’s velocity increases as time proceeds.
• Acceleration is defined as the rate at which the velocity is
changing.
• Average acceleration defined as the velocity changes by an amount
∆v over the time interval ∆t.

∆𝑣
𝑎𝑎𝑣𝑒 =
∆𝑡

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 Instantaneous Acceleration
• Instantaneous acceleration is defined as the changes of velocity at a particular
instant in time.

• Consider the acceleration in the limit of very small time intervals.

∆𝑣
𝑎 = lim
∆𝑡→0 ∆𝑡

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 Exercise 5
• A jet lands on an aircraft at 140 mi/h (≈ 63 m/s). What is its
acceleration (assumed constant) if it stops in 2.0 s due to an
arresting cable that snags the jet and brings it to a stop?
Ans: -31.5 m/s2

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 2.2 The Principle of Inertia
▪ In the principle of inertia, an object will maintain its state of
motion (its velocity) unless it is acted on by a force.

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 2.3 Newton’s Law of Motion
• If the total force acting on
an object is zero, the
Newton’s first law object will maintain its
velocity forever

• If the total force acting on an object is zero, the object will move
with a constant velocity.

• An object will move with a constant speed along a particular

direction and will continue this motion with the same speed in the
same direction forever as long as the total force acting on it is
zero. 34
 Inertia and Mass
• The inertia of an object is a measure of its resistance to changes
in motion.

• This resistance to change depends on the object’s mass.

• Objects that contain a large amount of matter have a larger mass

and a greater inertia than objects containing a small amount of
matter.

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 • In many situations, several different
forces act on an object simultaneously.
Newton’s The total force on the object is the
second law sum of these individual forces,

• Newton’s second law describes how an object will move when

acted on by a force or by a collection of forces.
• The acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the total
force that acts on it.

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 Exercise 6
• A single force of magnitude 6.0 N acts on a stone of mass 1.1 kg.
find the acceleration of the stone.
Ans: 5.45 m/s2

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 • When one object exerts a force on a
second object, the second object
Newton’s exerts a force of the same magnitude
third law and opposite direction on the first
object

• For example, when a baseball is struck by a bat, the force on the

ball is due to the action of the bat.
• When the bat is in contact with the baseball, the ball experiences a
force that leads to its acceleration. At the same time, the bat
experiences a force acting on it that comes from the ball.
• Newton’s third law is often called the action-reaction principle.
• These two forces are always equal in magnitude and opposite in
direction, and they must act on different objects. 38