Question

Suppose you give a 10 Newton push to Ryan on skis (he weighs 50 kg), how much will he accelerate?

Answer 1

Well we can just use F=ma. The force is 10N, the mass is 50 kg, solve for a. Well since we kg and N, no conversion is necessary. So just plugging in the numbers, we get

10N = 50 kg · a

$\frac{10N}{50kg}=a$

A newton is just $\frac{kg·m}{s^{2}}$

$a=\frac{\frac{10kg·m}{s^{2}}}{50kg}$

The s^2 and 50 kg you multiply

$a=\frac{10kg·m}{50kg·s^{2}}$

The kg's cancel and 10/50 is 1/5

$\frac{1}{5}·\frac{m}{s^{2}}$

So the acceleration is 1/5 m/s^2