Simple Science Experiments: Newtons First

Law of Motion
By Steve Davala

Many years ago, Sir Isaac Newton came up with some most excellent descriptions about motion.
His First Law of Motion is as follows: An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion
stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Quite a mouthful. What that means is that
something that is sitting there will continue to sit there unless moved. And something moving
will keep moving unless something stops it.

Still a mouthful. Just think about this: When you are at a stoplight in your car and you start
moving quickly, you feel pushed back into your chair. The opposite is true if you come to a
sudden stop, and you move keep moving forward, with only your seatbelt preventing you from
crashing forward.

Here are a couple of experiments that demonstrate this very cool law of motion; in a word called
inertia.

Ball Bounce Experiment

Materials for the Ball Bounce Experiment:

A basketball or soccer ball, or similar bouncy ball

a smaller bouncy ball (like a tennis ball or a racquet ball).

Have an assortment of other balls handy for further experimenting.

Procedure:

Do this experiment outside

First bounce the basketball and tennis ball side by side to compare their bounces. Start
them off around chest height

Make a hypothesis (a guess) about what will happen when you stack the small ball on top
of the bigger one and then drop it

Try it! It may take a couple tries to line them up just right but the results are pretty
awesome
Explanation:

The energy of motion from the bigger ball is transferred into the smaller one. Most of your
attention is on the sky-rocketing smaller ball, but if you look at the basketball, it doesnt have
much bounce at all!

Experiment further:

Hopefully this will make you think of other things. Like what if you switched the two balls and
dropped the smaller one on the bottom? What if you used two of the same sized ball? A golf ball
on top? Think of other things!

Penny on a Card Experiment

Materials for the Penny on the Card Experiment:

a small plastic cup,

a playing card

a coin.

Procedure:

Put a playing card on top of the plastic cup

Put a coin on top of the card

With a sharp flick, hit the card out from under the coin! Or pull it really quickly toward
you.

The coin will drop into the cup.

Explanation:

The coin has inertia, meaning it really wants to stay in one place. If you move the card slowly, it
isnt fast enough to overcome that force. If you flick it quickly, the coin stays in one place and
then drops into the cup. An object at rest will remain at rest. If you are brave, put the card on
your finger and the coin on top try to flick the card out until the coin stays on your finger. It
can be done!

Experiment further:
Use a sheet of printer paper with a few heavier (non-breakable) objects on it. See if you can
quickly pull the paper out from under the objects.

Another cool example of inertia: Put your hand, palm side up, next to your ear. Put a coin on
your elbow. In one swift motion, bring your hand straight forward and try to catch the coin
before it drops. If youre fast (and lucky) enough, you will catch the coin before gravity has a
chance to bring it down.

I hope you enjoyed this simple experiment and learned a little bit about the first law of motion
and inertia. If you have more questions about this, or need tips about science fair ideas around
this topic (or others), feel free to contact me.

You will need

balloons

marble.

What to do
1. Inflated wobbly balloon

2. Blow up a balloon and tie the end.

3. Bounce the balloon into the air with your hand and observe how it moves.

4. Place a marble in another balloon. Blow this balloon up and tie the end.

5. Bounce this balloon into the air with your hand. How does it move?

What's happening
The first balloon has a relatively small mass compared to its volume. The balloon falls due to
gravity, while air resistance slows its fall. Another way of saying this is that the force of air
resistance has an effect on its inertia. The materials making up the balloon (the air and the rubber
skin) are spread fairly evenly around the middle, making the balloon fall smoothly.

The marble in the second balloon doesnt behave like the balloon around it. It is denser, meaning
the force of air resistance on its movement has less of an effect on its inertia than on the balloons
inertia. It hits the side of the balloon and bounces back. The balloon also feels an equal force
from the marble, but in the opposite direction, pushing it away from the marble.

This is a good example of Newtons first law of motion on inertia, and third law of motion on
opposing forces.
The marble keeps moving and bouncing around inside the balloon, which results in the wobbly
motion of the balloon.

Applications
Air resistance is an important consideration in the design and function of aircraft. The higher up
in the atmosphere, the thinner the air. This lowers the air resistance meaning planes require less
fuel to achieve the same speed.

In the case of parachutes, a high air resistance is required. The large surface area of a parachute
results in a large air resistance. This slows down the person so that they are able to land safely.

Experiments to Demonstrate Lenz's Law

A simple experiment can be used to help students develop an understanding of the induction of
eddy currents and Lenz's Law. If a magnet is moved past a conductive material, two things
happen. First, the moving magnetic field cuts through the conductor and induces eddy currents in
the conductor. This was discovered by the English scientist, Michael Faraday. Next, the eddy
currents in the conductor generates their own magnetic field, which opposes the magnetic field
of the magnet. In 1834, Russian physicist Heinrich Lenz discovered this directional relationship
between the induced magnetic fields and current, which is known as Lenz's Law.

Lenz's Law states:

Arago's Swinging Magnet Experiment

A French scientist, Dominique Arago, developed a simple experiment to demonstrate Lenz's

Hang a magnet from a string over the surface of a conductive, but nonmagnetic material such as
copper. The magnet should come very close to the surface when it swings back and forth, but it
should not touch the surface. Swing the magnet and observe what happens. Remove the
conductive material and compare what happens when the magnet swings in absence of the
conductor.

It can be seen that the swing of the magnet is dampened when the conductor is in close
proximity. The metal has no magnetic attraction to the magnet, so what force is acting on the
magnet?
As the magnet swings and passes over the conductive material, the magnet's magnetic field cuts
through the conductor and induces an electrical current (Remind the students about induction and
how current is always generated in a conductor in the presence of a changing magnetic field).
The current in the conductor generates its own magnetic field, which according to Lenz's Law,
opposes the magnetic field that caused the current. Therefore, it is the opposing magnetic field
from the induced current (eddy currents) that slows the swing of the magnet.

Want A More Exciting Experiment?

A more elaborate experiment that demonstrates the same scientific principles can be done with a
solenoid wrapped around a pop can. When the switch is closed, a capacitor in the circuit is
discharged through the solenoid. Since the current varies in time, the magnetic field in the
solenoid and the magnetic flux defined in the solenoid will vary in time. This variable flux also
passes through the can inside the solenoid, inducing in it a current in opposite direction of the
current through the solenoid (Lenz's Law). The two antiparallel currents repel each other, and
since the solenoid is fixed the can will be crushed.

TRAVELLING TOOTHPICK

You Need:

Bowl of water

4 Toothpicks

A Bit of Soap (dish soap or hand soap)

This is a variation on the old scared pepper trick. Its quite neat.

1. Take the bowl and fill it with water.

2. Put the four toothpicks in the water in the shape of a square. If possible

have the toothpicks touch to form the corners of the square.

3. Now put a drop of soap on your finger and touch the water in the middle of

the square of toothpicks.

4. The toothpicks should spread out across the bowl.

5. If youd like to do this again, you will need to empty the bowl and put in
new water.

This happens due to surface tension. When you touch the surface of the

water with the soap, you break the surface tension of the water and the

skin of the water spreads out like a popped balloon. As it spreads, it takes

the toothpicks with it.

IVE GOT A CRUSH

You Need:

Empty 2 liter soda pop bottle with the cap

Hot tap water

Freezer

1. Turn on the hot water tap and get it to be quite hot. Don't burn yourself but the hotter the
better.

2. Fill the bottle about 1/4 full with the hot tap water.

3. Swirl and shake the bottle.

4. Pour out the water and put the cap on the bottle as fast as possible.

5. Take the bottle and stick it in the freezer.

6. Let it sit there for at least 30 minutes. The longer the better, however. Feel free to let it sit there
overnight.
7. Take it out of the freezer and take a look at it. You should notice that the bottle will be slightly
crushed.

When you swirl the hot water around the bottle, you are heating up the air inside the bottle. Hot
air has air molecules that are moving fast. They are moving so fast that many of them leave the
bottle. When you cap off the bottle you stop air flow from getting back into the bottle. As the air
in the bottle cools, the air molecules slow down and push less hard on the sides of the bottle. the
colder they get, the less hard they push. This allows the air pressure outside the bottle to push in
and eventually squish the sides of thebottle.