Force, mass, and acceleration are all related. Newton’s second law of motion explains how. Acceleration = force divided by mass. If something is accelerating it is constantly gaining speed. If you were driving and your foot was on the gas pedal, and you were constantly gaining speed, you would be accelerating. Suppose your friend was driving the truck, and you were driving the car. You both ran out of gas. To get to the gas station you both use the same amount of force to push your vehicles. Which one will move faster? The car would, because it has less mass. The number ten represents your equal forces. If five represents the mass of the truck, and one represents the mass of the car, the car would have a higher acceleration. This is because ten (the force) divided by five (the truck’s mass) equals two (the truck’s acceleration). Ten (the force) divided by one (the car’s mass) equals 10 (the car’s acceleration). You can see that the car accelerates five times as fast as the truck because it has1/5 as much mass.

You can also rewrite Newton’s second law so it will be force equals mass times acceleration. To find the amount of force acting on something we multiply the mass of what is producing the force by the rate at which it is accelerating. The product of the two is the amount of force. This amount is usually measured in newtons. A newton is equal to the force that is needed for a one kilogram object to accelerate at one meter per second per second. If you traveling at one meter per second per second, it would mean every second you were moving you would go one meter per second faster than the previous second.

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