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Course: Middle school physics > Unit 3
Lesson 1: Kinetic energyKinetic energy
Review your understanding of kinetic energy in this free article aligned to NGSS standards.
Key points:
- Kinetic energy is the energy that any object with mass has simply because it is moving. If an object is not moving, it has no kinetic energy.
- An object’s kinetic energy is directly related to its mass. Imagine two objects moving at the same speed. If one object has twice the mass of the other, it will also have twice the kinetic energy.
- An object’s kinetic energy is also related to the squared value of its speed. Imagine two objects with the same mass. If one is moving at twice the speed of the other, the faster object will have four times the kinetic energy.
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- How would you get the mass of the object ?
How would you get the weight of the object ?(23 votes)- Mass and weight are actually not the same thing in Physics, even though we sometimes use the words interchangeably in everyday life. Mass can be described as “how hard it is to move” something. Imagine you and an elephant are each on a skateboard. If we gave the same push to each of you, you would move a lot more than the elephant. That’s because you are less massive than an elephant.
Weight is the force of gravity acting on an object. Because gravity can be stronger or weaker depending on what planet (or other object) you’re near, your weight changes too! If you went to the Moon, the force of gravity on you would be about one-sixth what it is on Earth. That means that even though your mass is the same on the Earth or Moon, you’d weigh much less on the Moon!
We often measure an object’s mass by comparing how gravity (in the same location) acts on a known mass for comparison. If you see a balance-style scale, it’s measuring mass.
Weight is measured like other forces. Many bathroom scales use springs to measure the force of gravity acting on the object on top of them. This means if you took a bathroom scale to the Moon, it would read one-sixth your weight on Earth.
Does that help?(85 votes)
- I love green pickles(32 votes)
- how can we find the mass(21 votes)
- It will usually be given in most exercises(7 votes)
- How can we get the mass of an object(10 votes)
- If the object is small enough to fit on a scale then we just weigh it.(13 votes)
- where did I place my cheese(14 votes)
- How can we get the mass of an object(6 votes)
- Mass = Density * Volume(11 votes)
- Upvote to GIT GUD(10 votes)
- Is a A ball has a mass of 2Kg, suppose it travels at 10m/s. Find the kinetic energy possessed by it kenetic energy?(7 votes)
- Does M stand for Mass?(3 votes)
- Yes,"M" stand for mass.(10 votes)
- what's the difference between kinetic energy and potential energy?(6 votes)
- Kinetic Energy is the energy when something appears moving while potential energy is when it appears still. Potential energy can be kinetic energy if acted upon by a force.(3 votes)