Question

If you stand next to a wall on a frictionless skateboard and push the wall with a force of 40n, how hard does the wall push on you? if your mass is 80 kg, show that your acceleration is 0.5m/s2.

Answer 1

the wall pushes back with the same force you exert so 40N.

to show your acceleration is .5m/s^2 use newtons second law F=ma

so plugging in numbers gives 40N=80kg*a knowing that a newton is equal 1kgm/s^2 we could write 40kg*m/s^2= 80kg*a so solving for a gives

40kg*m/s^2/80kg = a we see the kg's cancel and we're left with
(40m/s^2)/80=a which gives .5m/s^2=a