Question

A student pushes a book across a table with a constant force.how would the acceleration of the book change if the mass was doubled but the force was held constant

Answer 1

The acceleration halves.

Step-by-step explanation:

We start with the equation F=MA (Force=Mass*Acceleration)

Since we are looking at the acceleration we re-arrange the equation in order to solve for A (Acceleration) and we get F/M=A.

We know the Force is constant so we leave F alone, so it can represent 1. Originally, we started with a Mass of "1" but now it is changed to 2M because the mass is doubled so we end up with the equation

F/2M=A compared to our original equation of F/M=A

Essentially the acceleration cuts in half,

We can prove this explanation with an example

32(force)/8(mass)=4(acceleration)

Now we double the mass value,

32/16=2

And as a result we end up with an acceleration that is half of the initial one!