Unbalanced forces are important because they affect how fast something moves.

According to Newton's Second Law of Motion, acceleration (how quickly something speeds up) depends on two things: the total force acting on an object and the mass (or weight) of that object.

You can think of it like this:

$$F_{\text{net}} = m \cdot a$$

Key Points:

• Net Force: This is what happens when the forces acting on an object don’t cancel each other out. These are called unbalanced forces.

• Acceleration: When the net force is bigger, the acceleration is also bigger. For example, if you have a force of 10 N pushing on a 2 kg object, it will speed up by $5 \, \text{m/s}^2$.

Examples:

• If a 1 kg object feels a force of 1 N, it will speed up at $1 \, \text{m/s}^2$.

• Imagine a car that weighs 1500 kg. If it needs a force of 3000 N to speed up, it will accelerate at $2 \, \text{m/s}^2$.

Knowing about unbalanced forces helps us understand how things move in different situations.