8.2: Momentum and Newton's Second Law
Topic outline
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In Unit 4 we learned to write Newton's Second Law of Motion as
. While this is the most common way to write and use this law, it was not how Newton originally wrote it. Newton wrote this law in terms of momentum rather than force and acceleration:
This shows that the net force equals the change in momentum divided by the change in time. This equation certainly appears different from the familiar
we used in Unit 4. -