Is a continous force required for acceleration or ..........?

Question

the application of force only once can also cause acceleration

Answer 1

Force always comes with acceleration. There is no way to have one without the other.

Thus, a continuous ACCELERATION must come with a continuous force.

However, you can apply an impulse to an object (a force over a limited amount of time) to increase its MOMENTUM at the instant of the impulse. This increases the magnitude of its VELOCITY.

Thus, the application of a force once for a short time can quickly accelerate an object to some speed and that object will hold that speed for all eternity after that time until a new force is applied.

Now, since we have friction, that object that is holding that constant speed will always have a continuous friction force (or a drag force even) slowing it down ("deceleration" the object). In this case, even to hold a CONSTANT speed a continuous force will have to be applied just to offset the friction force slowing the object down.

Answer 2

A continuous force is required for continuous acceleration.

A impulse force results in an impulse acceleration, not unlike a ball getting kicked.

For the duration of the contact of the foot with the ball, the ball is being accelerated, but once the contact is broken, the ball travels at a constant velocity.

Answer 3

Force and acceleration form a pair. Only when there's force there is acceleration. So in order to have constant acceleration we have to apply constant force. But if we need constant velocity then we have to apply the force for a limited period of time.

Let's uses some equations to make thing easier:
Assuming that the body on which the force is exerted has zero initial velocity we have
v = a*t

while F=m*a -> a=F/m

Combining these we get

v = F*t/m

Solving for time we have

t = v*m/F

So in order for a body of mass m to acquire a velocity v, the force F has to be applied for a time period of t.

Answer 4

i would say yes, applying force once can cause acceleration

The diff. btw 1 application and a continuous force application would be the amount of distance that can be covered when acceleration begins

Answer 5

yes but once u remove a force the acceleration stops. (any applied force is applied for an amount of time, no matter how little, even microseconds are continuous)

Answer 6

In order to go faster more energy must enter the system. So yes.

Remember, there is always an equal and opposite force opposing your direction of motion. In order to go faster, you have to overcome this force pushing back on you. So to put simply, you have to push back harder.

The amount of energy required to continue to go faster is an exponential function.