Forces

Forces can affect the speed, direction and shape of objects.  The unit of force is newton symbol N and measured using a newton meter.

Contact

• push and pull
• friction
• upthrust
• air resistance

Non contact

• gravity
• electrostatic
• magnetic
• weight

Forces are known as vector quantities which means they need size and direction.  They can be represented by an arrow.

arrow head shows direction and length of line shows size

Resultant forces are the overall force and they are found by adding or subtracting the forces along the line.

Scalar and Vector quantities

Scalar Quantities

• Temperature
• Distance
• Volume
• Speed
• Energy
• Mass

Vector Quantities

• Acceleration
• Displacement
• Velocity
• Force
• Momentum

Vector quantities have both size (magnitude) and direction whereas scalar quantities only…