Knowing the speed of the ball and the time the ball is airborne can give you information about that path. A field goal attempt is a perfect example of projectile motion. Every time the football is in the air, it follows the projectile motion path. There is another very important aspect of football physics: projectile motion. The football then exerts an equal amount of force in the opposite direction on the kicker’s foot. When the punter kicks the ball, his foot exerts a force on the ball. When examining this law, think of a punt. If we have a 112kg linebacker and he is accelerating at 8 m/s2 towards the quarterback, then the linebacker would exert a force of 896 Newton force on the quarterback! That is just one example, but everything in football that has a mass and acceleration will have a force.įinally, we have Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which states that every force has an equal and opposite reaction force.

When a linebacker is about to sack the quarterback, what is the force that linebacker will exert on the quarterback? First, you need to know his mass and the acceleration he has when hitting the quarterback. Newton’s Second Law of Motion states that a force on an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by its acceleration (F=ma). There are many other ways to show Newton’s First Law of Motion on the football, but let’s move on to Newton’s next law. That ball will remain in motion until an external force is once again applied to it. After the ball has been kicked, the ball is in motion as it flies across the field to the other team. That football will remain at rest on that stand until the kicker applies an external force on the ball. Before kickoff, the football is placed on a stand, waiting to be kicked to the other team. To relate this law to football, we’ll start with the kickoff.

This law states that an object in motion will stay in motion, and an object at rest will stay at rest, unless an external force is applied. The best way to start exploring football physics is with Newton’s First Law of Motion. Now, that definition may not scream football, but there would be no football without Physics and therefore no Super Bowl! Let’s explore the fundamental physics of football that we may have seen in our Physics class. Physics is the science of matter and energy in our natural world.

Three laws in physics science