Wouldn’t Newton’s second law mean the acceleration is indirectly proportional to the mass?
In: Physics
>Wouldn’t Newton’s second law mean the acceleration is indirectly proportional to the mass?
Yes, acceleration would be inversely proportional to the mass if the force is constant.
In this case the force is not constant. It is gravity and according to Newton’s law of universal gravitation f= G m1 m2/r^2 where G is the universal constant, m1 is the mass of the object, m2 is the mass of earth and r is the distance to the center of earth.
So the force is directly proportional to the mass. The result is the acceleration from gravity is independent of mass. If you look at formaulas for acceleration the mass will be cancled out.
Because f = m a => a=f/m or in this case a= f/m1 we can create it as a= Gm2 /r^2 Close to the earth’s surface Gm2 /r^2 is equal to about 9.8m/s^2. This is freefall acceleration on earth, that is when gravity is the only force. On an inclined plane, only a percentage of that force will accelerate the object. The force will still be directly proportional to the mass.
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