Question

Liz puts a 1 kg weight and a 10 kg weight on identical sleds. She then applies a 10N force to each sled. Explain why the

smaller weight has a larger acceleration.

Answer 1

According to Newton's second law of motion, the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force applied to it and inversely proportional to its mass. Therefore, the smaller weight has a larger acceleration compared to the larger weight.

Step-by-step explanation:

According to Newton's second law of motion, the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force applied to it and inversely proportional to its mass. In this case, Liz exerts a 10N force on each sled. As the smaller weight has a mass of 1 kg, its acceleration is greater compared to the larger weight with a mass of 10 kg.

Using the formula:

a = F/m

where a is acceleration, F is the net force, and m is the mass of the sled, we can see that for both sleds, the force applied is the same but the masses are different. Therefore, the sled with the smaller mass (1 kg) will experience a larger acceleration compared to the sled with the larger mass (10 kg).

Learn more about Acceleration in Newton's second law of motion