Topic Summaries

Newton’s Second Law

GCSE > Physics > WJEC > GCSE Physics Topic Summaries > Gravity and Newton's Laws > Newton’s Second Law
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  • Newton’s second law states that the acceleration of an object is proportional to the resultant force acting on it and inversely proportional to its mass.
  • This law can be written as the equation \(\text{resultant force}=\text{mass}\times\text{acceleration}\). This can also be written as \(F=ma\) where \(F\) is the resultant force in N, \(m\) is the mass in kg, and \(a\) is the acceleration in m/s2.
  • The inertial mass of an object is a measure of how difficult it is to change an object's velocity. It can be calculated as \(\text{inertial mass}=\text{force}\div\text{acceleration}\) or \(m=\dfrac{F}{a}\).

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