Normal Force and Weight - AP Physics 1

The free body diagram of the system is shown below:

is the normal force on the block, and is the weight of the block.

Since is a component of , we can represent it as:

If you're confused as why it's cosine and not sine, think about the system practically. The flatter the slope is, the greater the normal force. The smaller an angle becomes (creating a flatter slope), the greater the value of cosine becomes, and subsequently the greater the normal force becomes.

Now we can simply plug in our given values:

There are two forces in play for this scenario: the first is gravity and the second is friction. We can use Newton's second law to solve this problem:

Substituing in the two forces we just mentioned:

Note that the force of friction is subtracted because it is in the opposite direction of the force of gravity. Now, substituting in expressions for our two forces, we get:

If you are unsure of whether to use cosine or sine for each force, think about the situation practically. The flatter the slope gets, the less the force of gravity will have an effect on moving the block down the plane, hence the use of the sine function. Also, the flatter the slope gets, the greater the normal force will become, hence the use of the cosine function.

Canceling out mass from the equation and rearranging to solve for the coefficient of friction, we get:

There are two forces in play in this scenario. The first is gravity and the second is friction. Both depend on the angle of the slope. Since the block is traveling at a constant rate, we know the the gravitational and frictional force in the direction of the slope cancel each other out, and the net force is zero (there is no acceleration). Therefore, we can write:

Substituting in expressions for each force, we get:

If you are unsure of whether to use cosine or sine for each force, think about the situation practically. The flatter the slope gets, the less the force of gravity will have an effect on moving the block down the plane, hence the use of the sine function. Also, the flatter the slope gets, the greater the normal force will become, hence the use of the cosine function.

Canceling out mass and solving for the angle on one side of the equation, we get:

This is an important property to know! When an object travels down a slope at a constant rate, the tangent of the angle of the slope is equal to the coefficient of kinetic friction.

There are two forces at play in this scenario: the force of friction and the force of gravity. If the block is stationary, that means that the two forces cancel each other out. Therefore, we can write:

Substituting in expressions for each force, we get:

If you are unsure of whether to use cosine or sine for each force, think about the situation practically. The flatter the slope gets, the less the force of gravity will have an effect on trying to move the block down the plane, hence the use of the sine function. Also, the flatter the slope gets, the greater the normal force will become, hence the use of the cosine function.

There are two forces in play in this scenario: gravity and friction. We can use Newton's second law to form an expression with these forces:

Substituting in expressions for each force, we get:

If you are unsure of whether to use cosine or sine for each force, think about the situation practically. The flatter the slope gets, the less the force of gravity will have an effect on moving the block down the plane, hence the use of the sine function. Also, the flatter the slope gets, the greater the normal force will become, hence the use of the cosine function.

Canceling out mass and rearranging for the coefficient of friction, we get:

We need to develop an expression for the normal force on the block to solve this problem:

If you are unsure of whether to use sine or cosine, think about the system practically: the flatter the system gets, the larger the normal force will become; hence the use of the cosine function.

Rearranging for mass, we get:

The normal force points perpendicular to the force of gravity (opposite direction) and is equal in magnitude. Because the force of gravity is equal to , we simply multiply our given mass and the force of gravity to get our answer.

Recall that the formula for determining the magnitude of the normal force on an incline is given by:

Here, is the magnitude of the normal force, is the mass of the object, is the gravitational constant, and is the angle made with the horizontal.

In our case:

In this question, we're presented with a scenario where a person weighing at rest is being accelerated upwards. We're then asked to determine this person's new weight while they are undergoing this acceleration.

Let's begin our analysis by first considering the person to be at rest in the elevator. In this situation, it's useful to picture a free-body diagram of the person and all of the forces acting on him/her. While at rest, there is no net force acting on this individual. Since there is no net force in the y-direction, that means that the upward forces must be exactly balanced by the downward forces. The downward force acting on the individual is the force due to gravity, while the upward force is the normal force of the elevator's floor acting on the individual.

Put another way:

Next, let's derive an expression while considering the upward acceleration of the elevator. In such a situation, there is now a net force acting on the individual, and that net upward force is due to the elevator's acceleration. Just as it was while at rest, the downward force acting on the individual in this case is still the force due to gravity, and the upward force acting on the individual is the normal force of the elevator's floor.

Written in equation form, we have:

Notice that we are solving for the new value of the normal force while the elevator is accelerating. The reason why the normal force gives us the person's weight is due to Newton's third law. When the elevator accelerates upward, the elevator exerts a (normal) force on the individual that is equal in magnitude to the person's weight, but with reversed directionality.

Finally, we can calculate the person's mass:

Plugging the relavent values into the above expression that we've derived will give us our answer.

Notice that this value is greater than the that the person weighs while at rest. This is due to Newton's first law. When the elevator accelerates upward, the person's inertia resists this upward movement, which makes the person feel heavier. You can actually try this out for yourself next time you find an elevator!

One thing to note is that the weight measured was given in pounds instead of Newtons. We could convert the weights, but it turns out that we don't need to.

If your weight measured on Earth is

and the weight on the craft is

we know that on Earth the acceleration is . Using Newton's second law,

and

we can set equal since the mass never changes only the weight force, and solve for ,

This makes sense that you would weigh more if you were experiencing a larger acceleration. This is interesting because you could not tell if you were standing stationary in a gravitational field or accelerating in a non-inertial reference frame. This is what is known as the Equivalence Principle.

Using Newton's second law, we can determine the answer.

In our problem, and . is the acceleration due to gravity. Therefore,

Plug in values:

Solve for :

The reading on a scale is really the normal force . On a flat surface, we see the person has a reading of , or . On an inclined surface, one can show that the normal force has a new magnitude of:

This will lead the scale to read read:

Weight force is given by:

We only need the equations for weight and normal force to solve this problem. First the equation for weight (force of gravity):

Now the normal force, which is a function of weight:

If you're unsure why we used cosine, think about the situation practically. As the hill gets flatter (angle decreased), the normal force grows, and cosine is the function that gets larger as the angle gets smaller.

From the problem statement we know that the ratio of weight to normal force is 3:

We will start this problem by using the following kinematics equation:

Note that each variable is oriented in the direction of the slope of the hill. We will find the distance traveled along the hill, and then convert that to a height using the slope of the hill.

We already know the value of each variable, so we can find the distance traveled:

Now we can use the slope of the hill and the sine function to determine the height dropped:

We know these values, so let's plug them in:

By constructing a force diagram, it can be seen that:

Right when the box starts to move, these will be equal

Solving for

Plugging in values:

In this problem the force acts in the downward direction. The box's weight also acts in the downward direction. We can calculate weight of the box using the equation .

Normal force acts in the opposition to the weight of the box. We can calculate normal force by adding up the downward forces to find the counteracting force on the box.

Forces downward:

Forces upward:

Forces downward are equal to the forces upward. Therefore,

The correct answer is . There are 2 forces acting on the box: tension force () and normal force (). First we must calculate the force of the box:

The equation can be manipulated to solve for acceleration: