Having covered the basics of resultant forces, we can progress to a method for analysing vectors that does not rely purely on scale drawings. Before proceeding, let me stress that this approach is not needed for GCSE Physics but the method should be accessible to mathematically inclined readers and will prove very useful in post-GCSE … Continue reading Resolving Vectors
Resultant Forces (part 3)
In the final part of this mini-series, we have to deal with situations where the two component forces are neither opposite nor at right angles; the forces are simply at some general angle to each other. Typical situations where this could apply in real life are tugs pulling a ship or an airplane flying through … Continue reading Resultant Forces (part 3)
Resultant Forces (part 2)
In the first part of this mini-series we looked at forces that act in exactly opposite directions. We noted that although these forces can be subtracted, the correct procedure is to combine the forces in more rigorous way that clearly takes account of both their magnitude and their direction. The most powerful way to do … Continue reading Resultant Forces (part 2)
Resultant Forces (part 1)
The principle of resultants states that when two or more forces act on an object, they can be replaced with a single force that has the same effect as the multiple forces combined. This is a fairly simple idea but putting it into practice can produce a lot of confusion so let’s start with a … Continue reading Resultant Forces (part 1)
Mr Tarrant's physbang 'blog 