Question

How does changing force or mass affect the acceleration of an object?

Answer 1

We need to understand the relation between the force acting on a body and the mass of the body on which the force acts to realise and explain the dependence of the acceleration on these two quantities which can help us solve this problem.

Complete answer:
We know that the force is the cause for any physical effect to occur. In mechanics, this force acting on a body can cause the motion of a body. The Newton’s laws of motion clearly give the idea of the motion that is caused as a result of the forces.

According to Newton's second law of motion, the rate of change of momentum in a body can result in a rate of change of velocity in the body. We define the rate of change of momentum as the force and the rate of change of the velocity as the acceleration. So, we can relate these two terms, the force and acceleration through the mass on which these cause and effect takes place as –
$F=ma$

We can understand from this relation that the acceleration is dependent on the force on the body and the mass of the body as –
$a=\dfrac{F}{m}$

Thus, we can see that a change in force or the acceleration can affect the acceleration. The acceleration is directly proportional to the force and the mass is inversely proportional to the acceleration. This is the relation between the force and the mass on the acceleration.
This is the required solution.

Note:
We can see that the acceleration of the body increases when the force acting on the mass increases and vice versa. If the mass is increased, the acceleration decreases as they are inversely related. A balancing increase in these can stabilise the acceleration.