Force & Motion Vocabulary

a push or pull

• Motion

• Force

• Balanced Force

• Gravity

n object changing position over time

• Motion

• Speed

• Inertia

• Momentum

a force that resists motion between two touching surfaces; slows things down, produces heat; happens when any objects rub against each other Example: Hands rubbing together, hammer hitting a nail

• Inertia

• Speed

• Motion

• Friction

a force that attracts all objects towards each other… the larger the object, the greater this force; on Earth, it keeps the air around us (and everything else) from drifting off into space.

• Momentum

• Friction

• Mass

• Gravity

how much matter an object contains (different from weight) This is oftentimes measured by how much something weighs, but weight can change depending on where you are (such as on the moon where there is six times less gravity than on the earth) while this stays the same.

• Matter

• Friction

• Mass

• Gravity

force of gravity pulling down on an object

• Mass

• Matter

• Weight

• Speed

force or speed of movement; mass in motion; describes how strong a moving object is (ex. a moving train has much more of this than a moving soccer ball because it has more mass) increasing mass or increasing speed of an object will increase this!

• Speed

• Motion

• Inertia

• Momentum

how fast an object moves; distance over time; distance divided by time Example: 25 miles/hour or 25 miles per hour or 25 mph

• Speed

• Momentum

• Inertia

• Acceleration

the increase of speed

• Deceleration

• Speed

• Direction

• Acceleration

the decrease of speed

• Acceleration

• Direction

• Deceleration

• Speed