Newton's Laws in Basketball

Newton's First Law:

Newton's First Law of Motion

   Newton's first states that an object in motion will stay in motion unless another force acts upon it. This is demonstrated in basketball in a variety of ways.  When the basketball is thrown and traveling to the hoop, gravity is acting upon it to pull it back down, holding its speed back and bringing down its height. Also, when the basketball hits the backboard, it is abruptly stopped and bounced back. The picture on the right shows the down pull force of gravity and the direction of the ball BEFORE it hits the backboard.


Newton's Second Law:
   Newton's second law says that Force (F) is the Mass (M) times the Acceleration (A) of the object: F=MA. When someone throws the basketball with, lets say 1 Newton, it will go farther if someone exerted the same amount of force on something ten times heavier than the basketball.


Newton's Third Law:
   Newton's third law describes that for every action, or force, there is both an opposite and equal REACTION. An example of this is when the basketball hits the backboard. When it hits, one would observe that it bounces back. This is because of Newton's third law.

Newton's Third Law (first step)

Newton's Third Law (second step)
([THE BASKETBALL IS GONE!!])