Physics 325
Lecture 1
Newton’s Laws
These are the same three laws that you learned in 211. However, I will express them a
little differently:
The momentum of an object is constant unless an outside force acts on the object
Momentum is defined as mass velocity in an inertial reference frame
(This at least was Newton’s definition, and will be ours until we get to special
relativity)
A body acted upon by a force moves in such a manner that the time rate of change
of momentum equals the force
dp
F
dt
(This seems to include the first law)
If two bodies exert forces on each other, these forces are equal in magnitude and
opposite in direction.
Fab Fba
The second law, of course, can be written F ma when the mass remains constant. This
can serve as a definition of force, provided we have a definition of mass.
Putting the 2nd and 3rd laws together by writing
dpa dpb
Fab Fba
dt dt
we get
dpa dp
b (1.1)
dt dt
For an isolated system (no external forces) containing a and b, this is a statement of
conservation of momentum
d
pa pb 0
dt
Assuming constant mass, we can write Equation (1.1) as
1 1 m2a2
ma
where ai is the magnitude of ai . Therefore
m2 a
1
m1 a2
This gives us a way to measure mass relative to a reference mass m1. We apply a known
force and measure the acceleration relative to the acceleration of the reference mass. This
is the definition of inertial mass.
We are more familiar with the measurement of weight, the force experienced by a mass
due to gravity
F mg
where
ME
g G (1.2)
rE2
is the acceleration due to gravity.
The symbol G is Newton’s universal gravitational constant and M E and rE are the mass
and radius of the Earth, respectively. This definition provides us with the gravitational
mass. Gravitational and inertial mass have been shown to be equivalent to a few parts in
1012 (but no one really knows why).
Frames of Reference
We referred above to an “inertial reference frame”. What do we mean by this?
An inertial reference frame (IRF) is a reference frame that is not accelerating. Not
accelerating with respect to what is a good question. But it turns out that just saying it is
not accelerating is usually good enough – you can say “with respect to the fixed stars” if
you want to pretend that the stars are fixed.
A rotating reference frame is a counter example. It is clearly an accelerating reference
frame since while rotating a body has centripetal acceleration. So the earth is not really
an IRF, but we calculated our acceleration in Urbana in 211 and it’s pretty small, so it’s
approximately an IRF.
Newton’s laws are valid only in an IRF (though you can use them to derive laws in
NIRFs). Furthermore, all IRFs are equivalent so we can derive a set of rules for moving
from one frame S to another S’ that moves with respect to S at a constant velocity v0 :
The rules that take us from S to S’ are as follows:
r t r t v0t
d d
r t r t v0 v v v0 (1.3)
dt dt
dv dv
a a
dt dt
Therefore,
F ma F ma
The last two equations in (1.3) show that Newton’s laws remain unchanged if we move
from one IRF to another. This is known as Galilean invariance, and it is due to the fact
that Newton’s 2nd law involves a derivative of the velocity, so addition of a constant
velocity drops out.
