PROCASTINATION’S RELATION TO LAWS OF MOTION (PART 2)
By: Yustinus Halim
Tags: Physics, Productivity, Law Of Acceleration, Newton, Procrastination

Source: Lumen Learning

ACCELERATION BEATS PROCRASTINATION (SUBPART 1)

Hello guys what is up! Remember about Newtonian law of motion? If you haven’t checked it out, make sure you see my first post about the relation of procrastination to the law of motion.

Link: https://medium.com/@yustinus.halim24/procastinations-relation-to-first-law-of-motion-part-1-700639b78155

If you have seen it, good! Let us continue our discussion about Newtonian’s law of motion, shall we? We are going to talk about Newtonian’s second law of motion! Before we deep dive into the second law, I wanted to tell something important regarding to the discussion ahead.

Not many (no popular) books that I found so far are discussing this topic thoroughly about how to apply the second law of motion to productivity. Because second law can only operate on two conditions, with the conclusion that, the sum of all force occurred is unbalanced. First condition: The person choose not to procrastinate. Second condition: If the person’s willpower and or discipline to act is stronger than the person’s doubt, and or, any other forces with the opposite direction. The third law is also not discussed widely on its application to productivity. Let me discuss it with you both of these laws. We will discuss the third law on other Medium posts!

I will also divide the law of acceleration into multiple subparts so that the complexity of the information provided is not too high in one post. I promise myself to mainly, keep my article 3–5 minutes read ever since I started posting on Medium. Not only because I liked to see articles that are easy to read. But it is also because, I wanted to create the challenge for us writers, starting from myself to apply complex theory easily into practice. And keeping the article concise at all times.

This first subpart will talk mainly about how to understand the law of acceleration (or second law of Newtonian motion).

According to multiple websites (source will be referenced below), the second law of Newtonian motion states:

1. “The acceleration of an object is dependent upon two variables: force acting upon the object and the mass of the object. The acceleration of an object depends directly on the force acting upon the object, and inversely upon the mass of the object.

2. “As the force acting upon an object increases, the acceleration of the object increases. As the mass of an object increases, the acceleration of the object decreases.”

3. “The net force is the sum of all the forces acting on the mass.”

From these 3 points, let us focus on the position of force and acceleration inside the equation. Let us start from the first point using the last sentence. Now, because the last sentence is long, we are easy to misinterpret. In order to gain clearer understanding, let us break the last sentence into two parts.

1st point:

1st part: The acceleration of an object depends directly on the force acting upon the object.

2nd part: And (the force is) inversely upon the mass of the object.

Focus on these bold letters. Depends directly means the force and the acceleration has positive correlation (probably ≤1, if you have studied a little bit of statistics). Inversely upon means the force has the opposite position with the mass of an object (can also be applied to humans). Hence, the mass directly has negative correlation with force.

2nd point, broken down into 2 parts:

1st part: As the force acting upon an object increases, the acceleration of the object increases

2nd part: As the mass of an object increases, the acceleration of the object decreases.

2nd point are reinforcing the idea of the first point through the word increasing and decreasing. Let us reinforce the idea of correlation here. 1st part of 2nd point stated that force and acceleration has positive correlation. 2nd part of 2nd point stated that mass has negative correlation with acceleration. Hence, mass has negative correlation with force and acceleration. In other words, force and acceleration has mutual relationship, while mass do not have mutual relationship to both of them.

Wait, we still have the 3rd point, right? Yeah, we do! Now, let me bring out the 3rd point here. “The net force is the sum of all the forces acting on the mass.” This means, we should not just use any type of force into the equation. We should only use net force. Net force takes into account that force is a vector. Different directions of force will be cancelled out.

The equation will be F net = a * m (or m*a, with no difference of result) and a = F net/m. With F net = net (sum of all) force, a = acceleration and m = mass. Why does mass become a denominator of force? Because mass directly inverses upon the force on an object. Hence when the 2nd point showed up, mass is already below force, when it was made into an equation by the 3rd point. One more, where is acceleration represented in the 3rd point? It is represented inside the word acting. Acting in this case is a verb, it means taking action, in a specified way. The force specify the direction of the action. If the net force of the object is going right, the net acceleration CAN ONLY go right. I use net acceleration to give a better illustration, because acceleration is also a vector.

This is the final form of the equation:

F net = a net * m, a net = F net/m.

Acceleration and force are vectors, mass is scalar. Vector means it has magnitude and directions. While scalar means, it has no direction, only magnitude.

Give a response below for constructive feedback and criticisms! Type your response below if you are familiar with vector and scalar. Type your response if you understand the concept of correlation here!

Source:

1. https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-3/Newton-s-Second-Law

2.https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-2/Determining-the-Net-Force

3. https://www.reference.com/science/newton-s-second-law-1494c36e2dba6cc2

4. http://www.aaronswansonpt.com/basic-biomechanics-newtons-laws-of-motion/

5. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/physics/chapter/4-3-newtons-second-law-of-motion-concept-of-a-system/