Is this a proper analogy to understanding how current, voltage, and resistance work?

Cbcbrown said:

I get that, but 1 newton is the energy it takes to accelerate one kg 1 meter each second, per second...so if I have a 1kg ball and I roll it hard enough to make it move one meter in a second, thats one newton. However if I take a square of the same weight, and push it WAY harder and move it 1 meter in a second, did I only produce one newton of energy? I know I used more energy than that due to friction, Also I know that if I instead lift it into the air but extend my arm, due to force multiplied by distance I will have to generate more force to lift it. Can anyone help me with this?

Then, you have the fact that its per second per second, which means in one moment its moving 1m/s the next second 2m/s and so on, why doesnt this appear in joules? And how to you expand on this equation? If there was no time componet, why does it say per second per second, isnt the force defined by how fast youre making the object move? However if you have a ball on an ice rink of 1kg you can make it move much more rapidly on ice than on crushed gravel, make it travel faster per unit of time, I need help understanding how you can have a unit of time within newtons and that doesnt translate to joules. I feel like im confusing myself when I read the definitions of joules and watts

Click to expand...

Hi,

The Newton is a unit of force, not energy. It usually takes energy to apply a force, but force is considered separate from energy. It is possible to have a force with no energy expended.

When you see that 1 Newton is the force required to accelerate a 1kg mass 1 meter per second per second, that means that is happening in the presence of zero friction. Many of these simpler ideas can be viewed as taking place in deep space where there is no other force to consider other than that one force that is pushing the object. Friction resists force so it takes more force to overcome the resistance as well as accelerate the object. That means when we have friction it takes more force to move an object, so not all the force goes into accelerating the object anymore. It is possible to have low friction where there is almost no change, to a large amount of friction where the object does not move much at all.

The equation we are talking about there is F=M*a which is Force equals Mass times acceleration. Rearranging a little, we get a=F/M. But if there is friction then we have to add more terms to that equation, which can change the outcome drastically.

Understanding most of this stuff means you have to have an idea what the context is. With F=M*a it means that there are absolutely no other forces involved, including the resisting force of friction, so we get the 1 meter per second per second acceleration of that 1kg mass. When there is friction there is a different equation and the outcome will vary depending on how much friction is present. That's why an object can be pushed across an ice surface much easier than across a gravel surface. The gravel surface has more friction.

You should probably start with an algebra based physics book. That will help explain most of these basic concepts, then you can move on from there. We can look at more equations if you like though.