PH03-01 Physics Coming soon
Contact and non-contact forces
PH03-01
This lesson is coming soon.
In this lesson
Name both forces in any interaction and say whether that interaction is a contact one or a non-contact one.
What it covers
- A force as a push or a pull that comes from an INTERACTION between two objects, measured in newtons, drawn as an arrow that carries a direction
- The contact forces a GCSE physicist meets: friction, air resistance (drag), tension in a rope or a spring, and the normal contact force from a surface
- The non-contact forces: gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic
- The test that sorts them, done as a physical action rather than recited: are the two objects touching, or is there a field between them
- Every interaction produces a PAIR of forces, equal in size, opposite in direction, acting on the two DIFFERENT objects involved
- Naming both members of a pair out loud in a fixed sentence frame - the force of A on B, and the force of B on A
- Why a pair can never cancel: the two forces are on different objects, so they never belong on the same object's list
- Force as a vector - size AND direction, every time, which is why it gets an arrow
Key words
For: AQA GCSE 8463, Edexcel GCSE 1PH0, OCR GCSE J249
On the specification
| Board | Spec | Statement |
|---|---|---|
| AQA GCSE 8463 | 4.5.1.2 | Contact and non-contact forces |
| Edexcel GCSE 1PH0 | 9.1 | Describe, with examples, how objects can interact a at a distance without contact, linking these to the gravitational, electrostatic and magnetic fields involved b by contact, including normal contact force and friction c producing pairs of forces which can be represented as vectors |
| OCR GCSE J249 | P2.2a | Recall examples of ways in which objects interact |
| OCR GCSE J249 | P2.2b | Describe how such examples involve interactions between pairs of objects which produce a force on each object |
| OCR GCSE J249 | P2.2c | Represent forces as vectors |
For teachers
This GCSE Physics lesson teaches contact and non-contact forces. By the end, students should be able to name both forces in any interaction and say whether that interaction is a contact one or a non-contact one. It works through three worked examples and the mistakes examiners report, and suits Foundation and Higher tier students.