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An empty truck and a fully loaded truck are next to each other at a traffic light. When the light turns green, the lighter truck increases its speed more quickly. Which of these best explains this situation?

1) Newton's first law
2) Newton's second law
3) Newton's third law
4) Friction

User Fejta
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1 Answer

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Final answer:

The ability of the empty truck to accelerate more quickly than the loaded truck is best explained by Newton's second law, which relates acceleration with force and mass.

Step-by-step explanation:

Understanding Newton's Second Law

The situation where an empty truck increases its speed more quickly than a fully loaded truck can be best explained by Newton's second law of motion. Newton's second law states that the change of motion of a body is proportional to and in the direction of the force acting on it and is inversely proportional to its mass. This means that if you apply the same force to two objects of different masses, the object with the smaller mass will accelerate more. Since the empty truck has less mass than the loaded truck, it accelerates more quickly when the same amount of force is applied through the truck's engine.

User SCGH
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