Newton's Second Law Topic

Force, Mass, and Acceleration

Concept 1 demo

Tall wooden frame clamped to lecture bench with vise-grip clamps, metal disk pulley at top, meter stick mounted vertically on the frame, and a small metal stool at the base for height compensation

Simple Atwood Machine

Demonstrates Newton's Second Law quantitatively using two masses connected over a pulley. A small mass imbalance produces measurable constant acceleration, allowing students to compare predicted and measured fall times.

Accelerated Reference Frames

Concept 3 demos

Hand holding a white styrofoam cup with water streaming from a hole near the base, above a large clear graduated bucket filled with water; a wooden cafeteria tray sits on the table to the left

Leaking Cup Drop

A cup with a hole leaks water when held stationary but stops leaking when dropped. In the cup's freely falling reference frame, the effective gravity is zero, eliminating the hydrostatic …

Side-by-side frames showing a hand holding a red plastic slinky suspended against a chalkboard (left) and the moment after release with the top collapsing while the bottom coils remain stationary (right)

Falling Slinky

When a suspended slinky is released, its bottom remains completely stationary until the collapsing top reaches it. This challenges the assumption that all parts of a falling object accelerate simultaneously …

Inverted 2L Erlenmeyer flask filled with water and containing a red-white fishing float, mounted in an aluminum frame on a wheeled wooden cart, connected by a metal spring to a wooden block clamped to the bench

Accelerometer

An inverted water-filled flask with a fishing float rides on a spring-mounted cart. When accelerated, the heavier water pushes opposite to the acceleration while the buoyant float moves toward the …