r/AskPhysics • u/discotimbo • 19h ago
Making physics more tangible as a student
I've recently begun studying physics and intend to become an engineer at some point. However I have found myself feeling quite lost when it comes to forces, newton and such. Friction and gravitation makes sense but I find it very difficult to make sense of Newton. Is there a way to make this measurement more tangible? When someone tells me about like a kg, a meter or something alike I get a very clear picture of what that entails but I can't imagine what a newton, 10 newtons or 100 newtons mean.
Thankful for any advice
1
u/InternationalSize325 18h ago
Imagine holding a 10 kg dumbbell in your hands. The force you're resisting is 100 N.
2
1
u/Defiant_Sign8355 18h ago
Imagine having 1kg of something on your hand. The force you feel pushing your hand down is ~10N
1
u/Defiant_Sign8355 18h ago
I find mass (kg) harder to conceptualise even. Because every day what you feel in your body are forces. You weigh your body in kg, but the scale is measuring force, and giving you what your mass is because acceleration is constant on earth
1
u/Spirited-Fun3666 18h ago
Good luck. Both the university and the community college in my area curve their physics scores by like 20% just to get people to pass lol..
1
u/EngineerFly 17h ago
One newton is about the weight of an apple. On kg is about the mass of two bottles of water. One pound is the weight of one pint of water.
1
u/Traveling-Techie 17h ago
One “G” at the Earth’s surface is 9.8 Newtons, and a typical family or moderate roller coaster averages 2 to 3.5 Gs with intense thrill coasters hitting 4 to 5 Gs.
1
2
u/Antolin13 18h ago
Mi consejo para ti es que, si vas a estudiar una ingeniería, comiences por estudiar a fondo y comprender a los Vectores. Cuando logres entender que es un vector automáticamente se te hará claro el concepto de fuerza y además te permitirá comprender muchos otros conceptos que vas a estudiar en el futuro.