How Do Forces Affect Acceleration on a Frictionless Surface?

[beocom6000yello]

a 20 kg box is on frictionless surface acted on by two horizontal surfaces. when in same direction, it pulls 11 m/s but in opposite directions, it pulls only 1 m/s. determine magnitude of each force.
answer: 120 N , 100 N

okay...i need help with this. i am using Newtons law: force=mass x accelleration
i am trying to find force. mass is 20 kg and accelleration is 11 m/s. when i plug in that number, i get 220N. can someone please help?

 

[PhanthomJay]

a 20 kg box is on frictionless surface acted on by two horizontal surfacesyou mean forces. when in same direction, it pullsyou mean accelerates 11 m/sm/s^2 but in opposite directions, it pulls only 1 m/s accelerates 1m/s^2. determine magnitude of each force.
answer: 120 N , 100 N

okay...i need help with this. i am using Newtons law: force=mass x accelleration
i am trying to find force. mass is 20 kg and accelleration is 11 m/s. when i plug in that number, i get 220N. can someone please help?

You've got a couple of typos here, as noted above. Otherwise, you have solved for the net force when the body is accelerating at 11m/s^2. 220N is the net force. It is the algebraic sum of the 2 forces. You need to look at the 1m/s^2 acceleration case to get another equation before you can solve for the individual forces.

 

[Moetasim]

Based on the given information, it seems that the 20 kg box is being pulled by two forces in opposite directions. We can use Newton's Second Law, F=ma, to solve for the magnitude of each force.

First, let's consider the scenario where the two forces are in the same direction, resulting in an acceleration of 11 m/s. Using F=ma, we can calculate the total force acting on the box as F=20 kg x 11 m/s^2 = 220 N. Since there are two forces acting in the same direction, we can divide the total force by 2 to get the magnitude of each force, which is 220 N / 2 = 110 N.

Now, let's consider the scenario where the two forces are in opposite directions, resulting in an acceleration of only 1 m/s. Using F=ma, we can calculate the total force acting on the box as F=20 kg x 1 m/s^2 = 20 N. Again, since there are two forces acting in opposite directions, we can divide the total force by 2 to get the magnitude of each force, which is 20 N / 2 = 10 N.

Therefore, the magnitude of each force in the first scenario is 110 N and in the second scenario is 10 N. It is important to note that the direction of the forces also plays a role in determining the resulting acceleration. In this case, the direction of the forces is changing, resulting in different accelerations and therefore different magnitudes of forces.