Is there a simple way to remember each of Newton's laws?

There are 3 laws, in the first law, an object will not change its motion unless a force acts on it. (ex: A bin on the floor stays on the floor until you apply force on it).

In the second law, the force on an object is equal to its mass times its acceleration.

In the third law, when two objects interact, they apply forces to each other of equal magnitude and opposite direction. (Annoying your cat, it will annoy you back in the same way you annoyed it)

Yes. Newtons laws can be easily visualized and hence remembered. That's the beautiful thing about physics.

Firstly, lets go over the three laws.

Newtons First Law (Law of Inertia): First law states that, a body will stay in its state of motion (or rest) unless acted upon by an external force.

Now an easy way to remember this is by visualizing it. Imagine Cristiano Ronaldo wants to take a freekick. He places the ball on the spot, and he just stares at it. He doesnt do anything else. He doesnt kick it. He doesnt touch it. He just leaves it there and stares at it. Will it move? Nope. BAM! Newtons first law.

Newtons Second Law (F=ma): Newtons second law coverts the first law into an equation. Its physics, everything in Physics has an equation. Everything. The force acting on an object is equal to its mass multiplied by its acceleration, or inversely, the acceleration of an object is force acting on acting on the object divided by the objects mass.

Newtons Third Law: This is my favorite law and its super easy to remember because it doesnt just apply in Physics, but also real life. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

If you hit someone in real life, you are going to get hit back. Equal and opposite reaction.

A jet engine sucks in air and blasts it out through the exhaust. This causes the airplane to move in the opposite direction of the exhausted air. Equal and opposite reaction.

Hope this helped!

1st law: Recall the keywords: Object...same...speed and direction...unless...resultant force... You should be able to fill in the rest to make a full statement

2nd law: Recall the equation F =ma. This equation is basically the law

Acceleration directly proportional to force

Acceleration inversely proportional to mass

3rd law: Recall 4 words; Action, Opposite, Equal, Reaction. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

Hi Bartholome! When I was first introduced to Newton's Laws, I also struggled to remember them.

For me, the first law is basically common sense - a body will stay at rest or in constant motion until a resultant force acts on it - i.e. the current state the object is in won't change until we apply a force on it, which makes sense from our own intuitive understanding of the world.

The second law builds on the first, it tells you the relationship between the force applied and how the object's motion will change (it will accelerate). F = ma

The way I remembered the third law was a simplified statement that summed up the ideas quite generally - if A exerts a force on B, B exerts an equal but opposite force on A.

Hope that helps!

Hi Bartholome!

Indeed, there are ways to help you remember these laws, and more importantly, what they meant and their importance of them rather than just the enunciates. This all varies from person to person, so a way to remember these laws might be the ideal way for someone but maybe not for you, so you'll have to think of ways you like to remember things such as deduction by asking yourself questions, rhyme association, object association, etc.

The first law, known as the law of inertia, in very simple terms, states that an object will continue its straight path at constant speed or maintain its state of rest (or in a state of equilibrium) UNLESS an external force applies to the object. You can try to remember this law by asking yourself "why do things move at all?", obviously you will come up with the answer: "because something might be pushing or pulling that object". This is everything this law is about, it is just trying to explain why objects move once you apply force on them.

The second law is usually represented by one simple equation: F = ma. But usually, most people ignore the rationale behind this equation. What it is saying is actually just the second part or continuation of the first law, it states that the force exerted on a body is proportional in direction and magnitude to the rate of change (time rate) of the momentum of the body. Momentum is a vector quantity which is equal to mass times velocity. So in simple words, when the body is pushed, for example, it will change its direction and velocity according to the direction and magnitude that the force was exerted with. You can remember this by asking yourself: "why the object moves in that direction after I push it?", the answer will be: "because you pushed it that way", so it's easy to remember now that you know what this law is all about!

Finally, the third law is probably the easiest to remember. It just states that for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction. You can apply the rhyme association I was talking about at the beginning of this post. You can ask yourself: "why the book can stay on top of the table but if you put a motorcycle on top of the table it will probably break?" If an object exerts a force on another object, the first body will experience the reaction of the second body which will be equal to the force exerted by the first one but in opposite direction. For example, a book resting on a table is pushing the table in a downward direction due to the book has a mass and the acceleration of gravity will make the book exert a force on the table, because of this, the table will also be pushing the book upwards effectively allowing the book to be sustained easily on top of the surface of the table, the book will be in equilibrium because obviously the weight it exerts on the table is very easily counteracted by the table, you will need a heavier object than the table to make the balance of forces tip your way and "break" the table, its reaction force will simply not be enough!

Hopefully, this explanation will let you remember the laws easily, or at least be useful for you to understand a bit more about what they are about.