Week of 11/30/09

This week in science I learned about forces and their effect compared to other forces. Like the force of your hand against the forces of gravity. I learned how to make force diagrams. You make a dot and label it the object of interest. like a ball or house or frame. Then you draw all of the forces that effect the object as arrows. The longer the arrow, the stronger the force. You label the arrows the F (force) of an object on the object of interest. I also learned that all objects and only objects can exert force.

I learned these things by having one person hold two thing in their hands, like a bowling ball and a basketball, and ask them if they are exerting more force to one of the objects. I learned about the forces by drawing pictures of the situation that is in the question. Then you draw arrows on the picture to explain the forces. I learned what length to make the arrows by knowing that if the two arrows are equal and the equation equals zero that the object is being held steady.

It is important to know these things because forces are all around us and so we should know what a force is and how they work. We also should know about which things exert forces so we can predict how an experiment is going to work. Also, if you will eventually be taking physics then you should know all about forces and how they effect the objects around them. Forces are everywhere, so you should know about them and how to factor them into a situation. That is why you should know how to draw a force diagram.