Dynamics Introductory Activity

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This activity is designed to reveal your preconceptions about the causes of motion.

Instructions:

Discuss the following situations with the other members of your group. Try to come up with specific and complete answers. ("Gravity", for instance, is not a complete answer.) Each individual in the group should record their own answer.

  1. Situation: A book is lying at rest on a table. Why? In other words, what causes the book (or any object) to remain at rest?

  2. Situation: The Voyager spacecraft is moving out of the Solar System in a straight line with constant speed. Why is it doing that? What causes an object to move with constant velocity?

  3. Situation: A pencil rolls off the desk and falls to the floor. Why does it move the way it does? We know a lot about this motion (free fall) - but what causes it to happen? Why do objects accelerate?

  4. Situation: A book sliding across a table gradually comes to a stop. Why? What causes a moving object to gradually come to a stop?

 

last update March 1, 1999 by JL Stanbrough (jerry_stanbrough@bhs.batesville.k12.in.us)