Qualitative Observation Essay

Results:

Qualitative Observation: While standing in the elevator at rest, the individual felt normal, meaning it was the same feeling as standing in a regular room. As the elevator accelerated upwards going to a higher floor, the person’s body felt slightly heavier and as if the elevator floor was pushing against her feet. However, as the elevator was cruising, she felt that she was back to normal again as she did standing in the lab. As the elevator approached its destination, it began to decelerate and that is when her body felt lighter for a split second.

When moving from a higher floor to a lower floor, again standing in the elevator feels normal. As the elevator begins to accelerate downwards, the individual’s body felt lighter.

Force is defined as push or pull interactions between two objects. Weight is the force a person exerted on an object below him/her. Mass is the measurement of how resistant an object is to being accelerated. Newton’s first law of motion states that an object in motion will stay in motion and an object at rest will stay in rest unless a net external force acts upon it. This law means that an object moving at a certain velocity will maintain that same velocity unless an outside acts upon it. The same applies for an object at rest; only a net outside force can affect it. We observed Newton’s first law when we measured the individual’s weight in the lab room, on the elevator before it moved, and when the elevator was cruising. While cruising on the elevator to a higher floor, we were moving at a constant velocity, that mean there was no acceleration or acceleration was 0m/s/s. This explain why the feeling was normal (This explain why the person did not feel any force acting on it). Because the acceleration is 0m/s/s and considering the equation Fnet = ma, Fnet would be 0. Thus the individual’s weight, in the scenario of the cruising elevator would be the same as it was in the lab room because there was no net force acting upon