<em>"</em><em>a property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless that state is changed by an external force.</em><em>"</em>
When standing on the bathroom scale within the moving elevator, there are two forces acting on Henry's mass: Normal force and gravity.
Gravity is always downward, and normal force is perpendicular to the surface on which the mass is located (the bathroom scale), in upward direction.
Normal force, can adopt any value needed to match the acceleration of the mass, according to Newton's 2nd Law.
Gravity (which we call weight near the Earth's surface) can be calculated as follows:
According to Newton's 2nd Law, it must be met the following condition:
As the gravity is larger than normal force, this means that the acceleration is downward, so, we choose this direction as the positive.
Solving for a, we get:
We can find the speed after the first 3.8 s (assuming a is constant), applying the definition of acceleration as the rate of change of velocity:
Now, if during the next 3.8 s, normal force is 930 N (same as the weight), this means that both forces are equal each other, so net force is 0.
According to Newton's 2nd Law, if net force is 0, the object is either or at rest, or moving at a constant speed.
As the elevator was moving, the only choice is that it is moving at a constant speed, the same that it had when the scale was read for the first time, i.e., 4 m/s downward.
Answer: Kinetic Molecular Theory claims that gas particles are in continuous motion and completely demonstrate elastic collisions. Kinetic Molecular Theory can be used to describe the rules of both Charles and Boyle. A series of gas particles only has an average kinetic energy that is directly proportional to absolute temperature.