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In classical mechanics, for a body with constant mass, the (vector) acceleration of the body's center of mass is proportional to the net force vector (i.e. sum of all forces) acting on it (Newton's second law): = =, where F is the net force acting on the body, m is the mass of the body, and a is the center-of-mass acceleration.
Consequently, the acceleration is the second derivative of position, [7] often written . Position, when thought of as a displacement from an origin point, is a vector: a quantity with both magnitude and direction. [9]: 1 Velocity and acceleration are vector quantities as well. The mathematical tools of vector algebra provide the means to ...
The force known as "weight" is proportional to mass and acceleration in all situations where the mass is accelerated away from free fall. For example, when a body is at rest in a gravitational field (rather than in free fall), it must be accelerated by a force from a scale or the surface of a planetary body such as the Earth or the Moon .
Kinematic quantities of a classical particle of mass m: position r, velocity v, acceleration a. From the instantaneous position r = r(t), instantaneous meaning at an instant value of time t, the instantaneous velocity v = v(t) and acceleration a = a(t) have the general, coordinate-independent definitions; [7]
The term mass in special relativity usually refers to the rest mass of the object, which is the Newtonian mass as measured by an observer moving along with the object. The invariant mass is another name for the rest mass of single particles. The more general invariant mass (calculated with a more complicated formula) loosely corresponds to the ...
If the mass of the object is constant, this law implies that the acceleration of an object is directly proportional to the net force acting on the object, is in the direction of the net force, and is inversely proportional to the mass of the object. [17]: 204–207
When the velocity changes sign (at the maximum and minimum displacements), the magnitude of the force on the mass changes by twice the magnitude of the frictional force, because the spring force is continuous and the frictional force reverses direction with velocity. The jump in acceleration equals the force on the mass divided by the mass.
The general formula for the escape velocity of an object at a distance r from the center of a planet with mass M is [12] = =, where G is the gravitational constant and g is the gravitational acceleration. The escape velocity from Earth's surface is about 11 200 m/s, and is irrespective of the direction of the object.