Question #c3207
1 Answer
This is a tough answer. It's hard to think of ways Newton's Laws don't apply to football.
Explanation:
Briefly:
Newton's 1st Law part 1: an object at rest will remain at rest. Think of an offensive lineman who doesn't want to move. They're not going to move unless someone pushes them around.
Newton's 1st Law part 2: an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an (unbalanced) net force. A ball carrier running in the clear will keep running until they're tackled.
Newton's 2nd Law F = ma. One reason the average football player is so big is because that means they have more mass, which means that when that mass accelerates, they hit harder than a smaller sized person.
Newton's 3rd Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a runner gets tackled to the ground, it can hurt because the runner gets slammed into the turf and the turf pushes back on the runner with the exact same amount of force. So, the harder you hit the ground, the more it hurts because the ground is hitting back!
