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V. Numerical Problems · Q4

Q.Physics textbooks are stacked one upon another on a table, one volume above another.

(a) Identify the forces acting on each book and draw the free body diagram for each book.
(b) Identify the forces exerted by each book on the other.
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Concept understanding — Free Body Diagram Construction

A free body diagram (FBD) isolates one chosen object and shows only the forces acting on it — never the forces it exerts on other bodies. The systematic procedure: (1) identify every force acting on the object; (2) represent the object as a single point; (3) draw each force as a vector arrow from that point, in its correct direction and (where relevant) relative magnitude; (4) apply Newton's second law along each convenient axis.

The single most important — and most often violated — rule is that forces the object exerts on other bodies must never appear in its own FBD. For example, a book resting on a table has exactly two forces in its FBD (weight mgmg down, normal force NN up); the (Newton's-third-law) force the book exerts back on the table, and the force the book exerts (upward) on the Earth via gravity, belong in other objects' FBDs, never the book's own. …

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