Answer to Question #107644 in Mechanics | Relativity for Breanne Mcalpin

Question

describe how you could use a piece of paper, a coin and a desk to demonstrate newton's first law for an object initially at rest. include an explanation of how this this demonstrates The law

Answer 1

I would do the following.

Put a paper on the desk. put a coin on the piece of paper, pull the paper quickly. What we will observe is that coin will stay near the place where it was initially (as well as the desk) while the paper can be a meter away or even more. Why? The answer is Newton's first law: bodies tend to remain at rest or continue to move if no other external forces act on them.

How is it applied in this situation?

The force of friction acted on the coin for a very short time, therefore, the coin remains at rest (we assume that since it was too short, no external force was applied).

Our hand's pull force acted on the paper and that is why the paper moved. However, if we were to pull the table, we would feel that it tends to remain at rest.