Newton’s second law states that if you apply a force, push or pull, on an object, it will accelerate. It accelerates in the direction that you push it. The acceleration is directly proportional to the force applied to it. If you push an object, then you push it twice as hard. The object will accelerate twice as fast. Also the acceleration is inversely proportional to the mass of an object. If you have two objects that are applied with the same force but one has double the mass, then that one will accelerate twice as slow.

In Newton’s second law, there is the net force. This is the overall applied force on an object that causes it to accelerate. If an object weighs 10 N’s then gravity is pulling down on it with 10 N’s. That means that whatever the object is sitting on is supporting it with 10 N’s. These two forces cancel out and there is no vertical motion. If you apply a force of 15 N’s on the object to the right, and lets say that friction is pushing in the other way with 10 N’s, then the net force would be five N’s to the right. Given this information you could find out the acceleration. a=Fnet/mass, this means acceleration equals net force divided by mass. We know all of these variables and can figure out the acceleration. The acceleration would be .5 m/s squared to the right.