Physics in Soccer
Entry posted by ericaplukas
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I have played soccer my entire life and not once have i ever thought, "I wonder what the physics is when i kick the ball." To be honest, I dont think I have ever asked that... ever. To look back on it now, the entire game is made up of physics and without it, the game would not even be possible. Through Newtons laws of motion, the game of soccer can become an intense, physical, and well thought out game.
Newtons 1st law of inertia states, any object at rest, will tend to stay at rest, and any object in motion, will tend to stay in motion unless acted on by an unbalanced force. The soccer ball would be the object in which when kicked, it will stay in motion and stop only because a force will cause it to, friction, and of course, the earth's gravitational pull. When the ball is at rest, it will not move again until kicked. The 1st law is shown in soccer.
Newtons 2nd law says the change in velocity (acceleration) with which an object moves is directly proportional to the magnitude of the force applied to the object and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. This means that if the ball has a lot of mass, it will need more force to move it and vice versa.
Newtons 3rd law says for every action, there is and equal and opposite reaction. In soccer, you dont normally see this because when kicking the ball, your leg has more inertia which means the opposite reaction is not shown visibly because the leg has a lot more resistivity to move than the ball.
Overall, soccer shows all three of Newtons laws. Without physics, soccer would not make sense and not many people could survive without soccer!!
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