Chapter 6, Problem 40A

A common saying goes, 'It’s not the fall that hurts you; it’s the sudden stop.' Translate this into Newton’s laws of motion.

To determine

To translate:The common saying into the Newton’s laws of motion, that, it’s not the fall that hurts you; it’s a sudden stop.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

Newton’s laws of motion are the milestone in the history of Physics. In every day, many times people came across, where they experience the Newton’s laws of motion, for example while walking, playing cricket, driving car, and many more.

According to Newton’s 2^nd law of motion,

  $F=ma$

Where,

m= mass of object

a= acceleration of object due to gravity.

Force due to gravity acts on the object when itfalls from certain height, this force can be given by Newton’s 2^nd law of motion. From basic mechanics theory, acceleration is the change in velocity with respect to time. When body fall from certain height, its velocity increases with time. But as body reaches to the ground, it suddenly stopped. Final velocity sudden becomes zero. That sudden change in velocity results into the large acceleration of body. Due to acquire acceleration force exerted by object on the ground is,

  $F=ma$ - in downward direction.

Due to this downward force, equal amount of force exerted by the ground on the object, according to the newton’s 3^rd law of motion.Equal amount of force exert by ground on the object due to the large acceleration of the object in the downward direction. Due to this large force exert by ground on object hurts more.