Sir
Isaac Newton came up with three laws that govern motion. His first law
plays a huge role in skiing. It states that “An object in motion
will stay in motion, and an object in rest will stay at rest until acted
upon by an outside force.” Therefore if there were no friction and
you started to ski down the mountain, you could ski indefinitely except
for the fact that you would eventually encounter a tree or some other
outside force that would bring you to a stop. Newton’s second law
states that Force = (mass)x(acceleration) (F=ma). This equation allows
you to determine the amount of force you have as you ski down the mountain.
It also allows you to see the relationship acceleration plays in your
force, and how if you were quickly accelerating and hit a tree, then the
force you hit the tree with would be considerably higher than if you were
skiing slowly. Newton’s third law says “For every action there
is an opposite and equal reaction.” What this simply means is that,
with the force that I hit a gate on the slalom course, that gate will
exert the exact same amount of force back on me. This law is also what
keeps running through my head when skiing through trees, knowing that
if I were to hit one, it might be my last run for the day.
