PHY250L
LAB 3 EXAM
Newton’s Laws
Actual Questions & Verified Answers
Straighterline
,Lab 3 Newton’s Laws PHY250L
Student Name: Shear Jashub
Access Code (located on the underside of the lid of your lab kit): AC-1FVKJN
Lab Report Format Expectations
Utilize college level grammar and formatting when answering text based questions.
Report all equations in a proper mathematical format, with the correct signs and symbols.
Submissions with incomplete or improperly formatted responses may be rejected.
Pre-Lab Questions
1. State Newton’s Laws in words.
Newton’s first law says that an object will just stay still or keep moving the same way unless a
force comes in and changes that. The second law is really just saying that how much something
speeds up depends on how hard you push it and how heavy it is. And the third law is just that
whenever one object puts a force on another, the second object pushes back just as hard in the
opposite direction.
2. Consider the masses in Figure 4 to the right.
Draw a Free Body Diagram for:
a. Mass 1
, Lab 3 Newton’s Laws PHY250L
b. and Mass 2.
Figure 4: Free Body Diagram: 2 objects with mass
hanging on a pulley by string.
3. Apply Newton’s 2nd Law, F=ma, to write the force equations for M1 and M2. This will yield two
equations that detail the sum of forces in your free body diagram. You should get two force
equations that describe the Tension in the string (force in the up direction), weight for each
mass (force in the down direction) and accelerations for each mass (a1 and a2).
T - M₁g = M₁a₁
M₂g - T = M₂a₂
4. This results in two equations with three unknowns, which means you would be unable to solve
these problems without a third equation. What is this third equation? (Hint: What is the
relationship between a1 and a2? Remember, acceleration has a direction, and thus a sign.)
a₁ = -a₂
LAB 3 EXAM
Newton’s Laws
Actual Questions & Verified Answers
Straighterline
,Lab 3 Newton’s Laws PHY250L
Student Name: Shear Jashub
Access Code (located on the underside of the lid of your lab kit): AC-1FVKJN
Lab Report Format Expectations
Utilize college level grammar and formatting when answering text based questions.
Report all equations in a proper mathematical format, with the correct signs and symbols.
Submissions with incomplete or improperly formatted responses may be rejected.
Pre-Lab Questions
1. State Newton’s Laws in words.
Newton’s first law says that an object will just stay still or keep moving the same way unless a
force comes in and changes that. The second law is really just saying that how much something
speeds up depends on how hard you push it and how heavy it is. And the third law is just that
whenever one object puts a force on another, the second object pushes back just as hard in the
opposite direction.
2. Consider the masses in Figure 4 to the right.
Draw a Free Body Diagram for:
a. Mass 1
, Lab 3 Newton’s Laws PHY250L
b. and Mass 2.
Figure 4: Free Body Diagram: 2 objects with mass
hanging on a pulley by string.
3. Apply Newton’s 2nd Law, F=ma, to write the force equations for M1 and M2. This will yield two
equations that detail the sum of forces in your free body diagram. You should get two force
equations that describe the Tension in the string (force in the up direction), weight for each
mass (force in the down direction) and accelerations for each mass (a1 and a2).
T - M₁g = M₁a₁
M₂g - T = M₂a₂
4. This results in two equations with three unknowns, which means you would be unable to solve
these problems without a third equation. What is this third equation? (Hint: What is the
relationship between a1 and a2? Remember, acceleration has a direction, and thus a sign.)
a₁ = -a₂
