Verifying Newton's Second Law - Using a linear air track
- When a small force is applied on a body of mass M on a frictionless track an acceleration is produced.
- This can be calculated by measuring the time required by the body to travel a fixed distance d.
- From Newton’s 1st law it can be shown that the acceleration decreases when a frictional force FN acts in the opposite direction given by,
$$a=\frac{(m- µM)}{(m+Mg)}$$
The coefficient of Friction can be calculated by FN= Fmin,
where μ = Coefficient of friction,
FN= Normal Force,
Fmin= Minimum force required to move the hanger.