Free body diagrams close free body diagramA simplified drawing of an object or system showing the forces acting on it. The forces are shown acting away from the centre of a box or dot. are used to ...

In the diagram of a toy trailer below, when a child pulls on the handle, some of the 5 newton (N) force pulls the trailer upwards away from the ground and some of the force pulls it to the right.

I've been covering chemistry software in my last few articles, so this time, I decided to move to physics and introduce a package called JaxoDraw. In physics, there's a powerful technique for ...