The sum of all forces acting on a body is equal to the product of the mass of the body and the acceleration imparted by this sum of forces. It should also be noted that Newton’s second law is valid for bodies of constant mass, finite dimensions and moving forward. When interacting, the greater the force, the greater the acceleration of the body on which this force acts. Therefore, acceleration is directly proportional to the acting force. Newton’s second law, which describes the motion of a material point with a mass m under the action of a force F, is as follows (Gauld, 1975):
In inertial frames of reference, the acceleration with which a body moves is directly proportional to the resultant of all forces and inversely proportional to the mass of this body. From the second law, in particular, it follows that the acceleration of a body subjected to the action of several forces is equal to the sum of the accelerations imparted by each force. Force and acceleration are vector quantities, their directions always coincide. In the case of an air plein air, as well as within the framework of this task, the following quantities are taken into account: glider’s length; length between photographic gates; glider’s mass with all the weights; starting position of the glider; data of hanging mass. The calculation results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Experiment Results.
Reference
Gauld, C. F. (1975). Newton and the Second Law of Motion. Australian Science Teachers Journal, 21(1), 57-62.