The Discovery of Important Physical Things

Everyone knows about Isaac Newton and the apple that fell down from the tree that eventually led him to the discovery of gravity, and you probably also know about Albert Einstein's famous equation E=mc squared. What do these things have in common? They both are related to physics.

Gravity

One of the most important things in the physics world is gravity. The force that makes objects fall to the ground, that lets us touch the ground, that keeps our feet in our shoes, etc. Isaac Newton made a law about gravity: Newton’s law states every object is attracted to another using a force. So every particle inside you is attracted to another. Different planets have different pulls on objects. Isaac Newton made this discovery in 1666. Gravity has a pretty forceful job!

Friction

Friction was discovered by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1493 and rediscovered in 1699 by Guillaume Amontons Friction is one of the most biggest things because it's how we are able to do work. Friction is known for its drag on objects slowing them down. Imagine a feather falling down from the sky, the reason it doesn't come straight down is because friction causes the air to rub on it slowing it down, so that the feather glides slowly to the ground. But even though it's a real drag, it's really important,(The brakes on any kind of transportation wouldn't work!). If there was no friction then no vehicle could be stopped and many things like ice skating wouldn't be a thing.

Speed

Speed is a measure of how fast we go. The formula for finding the average speed of an object is speed divided by time. For example, if the total speed is 100 miles, and the time it took to go 100 miles was 5 hours, then the velocity (average speed) of the object is 100/5 which equals 20mph.

Acceleration

Acceleration, which was discovered all the way back in 1553 by Giambattista Benedetti, is the increase of speed of an object. If you were 100 pounds, and someone shoved you, you might jump about two feet forward. If you were 150 pounds and someone shoved you with the same force then you wouldn't naturally go as far as you did before. E=mc^2 Arguably the most famous equation that relates to physics is by Albert Einstein, E=mc^2 where m is the amount of mass for the object and c means the speed of light squared while E stands for energy. This equation shows that even a small amount of mass can result in an overflow of energy.

Inertia

Last but not least is inertia. Inertia states that an object won't move until a force is acted upon it. Some forces are the wind, your feet, or your hands! If a force acts upon an object- like kicking a soccer ball- the soccer ball will move at the same speed at all times unless a different force is acting upon it, which we now know is mostly friction. There is so much more to discover about the universe. We need to learn everything we can to give us a bright future. The more knowledge we have, the better we can understand our world. I encourage all of you to try to find out