Laws of Motion

We saw that uniform motion needs the concept of velocity alone whereas non-uniform motion requires the concept of acceleration in addition. So far, we have not asked the question as to what governs the motion of bodies. In this chapter, we turn to this basic question.

Let us first guess the answer based on our common experience. To move a football at rest, someone must kick it. To throw a stone upwards, one has to give it an upward push. A breeze causes the branches of a tree to swing; a strong wind can even move heavy objects. A boat moves in a flowing river without anyone rowing it. Clearly, some external agency is needed to provide force to move a body from rest. Likewise, an external force is needed also to retard or stop motion. You can stop a ball rolling down an inclined plane by applying a force against the direction of its motion.

In these examples, the external agency of force (hands, wind, stream, etc) is in contact with the object. This is not always necessary. A stone released from the top of a building accelerates downward due to the gravitational pull of the earth. A bar magnet can attract an iron nail from a distance. This shows that external agencies (e.g. gravitational and magnetic forces ) can exert force on a body even from a distance.

In short, a force is required to put a stationary body in motion or stop a moving body, and some external agency is needed to provide this force. The external agency may or may not be in contact with the body. 

Mechanical Properties of Solids at a Glance

1. Stress is the restoring force per unit area and strain is the fractional change in dimension. In general there are three types of stresses (a) tensile stress — longitudinal stress (associated with stretching) or compressive stress (associated with compression), (b) shearing stress, and (c) hydraulic stress. 

2. For small deformations, stress is directly proportional to the strain for many materials. This is known as Hooke’s law. The constant of proportionality is called modulus of elasticity. Three elastic moduli viz., Young’s modulus, shear modulus and bulk modulus are used to describe the elastic behaviour of objects as they respond to deforming forces that act on them.

A class of solids called elastomers does not obey Hooke’s law.

3. When an object is under tension or compression, the Hooke’s law takes the form

F/A = Y∆L/L

where ∆L/L is the tensile or compressive strain of the object, F is the magnitude of the applied force causing the strain, A is the cross-sectional area over which F is applied (perpendicular to A) and Y is the Young’s modulus for the object. The stress is F/A.

4. A pair of forces when applied parallel to the upper and lower faces, the solid deforms so that the upper face moves sideways with respect to the lower. The horizontal displacement ∆L of the upper face is perpendicular to the vertical height L. This type of deformation is called shear and the corresponding stress is the shearing stress. This type of stress is possible only in solids.

In this kind of deformation the Hooke’s law takes the form

F/A = G × ∆L/L

where ∆L is the displacement of one end of object in the direction of the applied force F, and G is the shear modulus.

5. When an object undergoes hydraulic compression due to a stress exerted by a surrounding fluid, the Hooke’s law takes the form

p = B (∆V/V), 

where p is the pressure (hydraulic stress) on the object due to the fluid, ∆V/V (the volume strain) is the absolute fractional change in the object’s volume due to that pressure and B is the bulk modulus of the object.

6. In the case of a wire, suspended from celing and stretched under the action of a weight (F) suspended from its other end, the force exerted by the ceiling on it is equal and opposite to the weight. However, the tension at any cross-section A of the wire is just F and not 2F. Hence, tensile stress which is equal to the tension per unit area is equal to F/A.

7. Hooke’s law is valid only in the linear part of stress-strain curve.

8. The Young’s modulus and shear modulus are relevant only for solids since only solids have lengths and shapes.

9. Bulk modulus is relevant for solids, liquid and gases. It refers to the change in volume when every part of the body is under the uniform stress so that the shape of the body remains unchanged. 

10. Metals have larger values of Young’s modulus than alloys and elastomers. A material with large value of Young’s modulus requires a large force to produce small changes in its length. 

11. In daily life, we feel that a material which stretches more is more elastic, but it a is misnomer. In fact material which stretches to a lesser extent for a given load is considered to be more elastic.

12. In general, a deforming force in one direction can produce strains in other directions also. The proportionality between stress and strain in such situations cannot be described by just one elastic constant. For example, for a wire under longitudinal strain, the lateral dimensions (radius of cross section) will undergo a small change, which is described by another elastic constant of the material (called Poisson ratio).

13. Stress is not a vector quantity since, unlike a force, the stress cannot be assigned a specific direction. Force acting on the portion of a body on a specified side of a section has a definite direction.

Some Basic Concepts of Chemistry

1. Some Basic Concepts of Chemistry
   

The study of chemistry is very important as its domain encompasses every sphere of life. Chemists study the properties and structure of substances and the changes undergone by them. All substances contain matter, which can exist in three states – solid, liquid or gas. The constituent particles are held in different ways in these states of matter and they exhibit their characteristic properties. 

Classification of Matter

Matter can also be classified into elements, compounds or mixtures. An element contains particles of only one type, which may be atoms or molecules. The compounds are formed where atoms of two or more elements combine in a fixed ratio to each other. Mixtures occur widely and many of the substances present around us are mixtures.

When the properties of a substance are studied, measurement is inherent. 

Measurements of Substances in SI System

The quantification of properties requires a system of measurement and units in which the quantities are to be expressed. Many systems of measurement exist, of which the English and the Metric Systems are widely used. The scientific community, however, has agreed to have a uniform and common system throughout the world, which is abbreviated as SI units (International System of Units).

Since measurements involve recording of data, which are always associated with a certain amount of uncertainty, the proper handling of data obtained by measuring the quantities is very important. The measurements of quantities in chemistry are spread over a wide range of 10-31 to 1023. Hence, a convenient system of expressing the numbers in scientific notation is used. The uncertainty is taken care of by specifying the number of significant figures, in which the observations are reported. The dimensional analysis helps to express the measured quantities in different systems of units. Hence, it is possible to interconvert the results from one system of units to another.

Basic Laws of Chemical Combination

The combination of different atoms is governed by basic laws of chemical combination — these being the 

1. Law of Conservation of Mass, 2. Law of Definite Proportions, 3. Law of Multiple Proportions, 

4. Gay Lussac’s Law of Gaseous Volumes and 5. Avogadro Law. 

All these laws led to the Dalton’s atomic theory, which states that atoms are building blocks of matter. 

Atomic and Molecular Mass

The atomic mass of an element is expressed relative to 12C isotope of carbon, which has an exact value of 12u. Usually, the atomic mass used for an element is the average atomic mass obtained by taking into account the natural abundance of different isotopes of that element. The molecular mass of a molecule is obtained by taking sum of the atomic masses of different atoms present in a molecule. The molecular formula can be calculated by determining the mass per cent of different elements present in a compound and its molecular mass.

Avogadro Number

 

The number of atoms, molecules or any other particles present in a given system are expressed in the terms of Avogadro constant (6.022 × 1023). This is known as 1 mol of the respective particles or entities.

Stoichiometric Calculations

Chemical reactions represent the chemical changes undergone by different elements and compounds. A balanced chemical equation provides a lot of information. The coefficients indicate the molar ratios and the respective number of particles taking part in a particular reaction. The quantitative study of the reactants required or the products formed is called stoichiometry. Using stoichiometric calculations, the amount of one or more reactant(s) required to produce a particular amount of product can be determined . 

The Amount of Substance in a Solution

The amount of substance present in a given volume of a solution is expressed in number of ways, e.g., 1. Mass Per cent, 2. Mole fraction, 3. Molarity and 4. Molality.