Place a sheet of paper under a medium-sized book lying on a smooth tabletop or desktop.
a. Try to accelerate the book smoothly by exerting a constant pull on the sheet of paper. What happens if you try to accelerate the book too rapidly? Can you pull the paper cleanly from underneath the book without moving the book? Explain your observations in terms of Newton’s laws of motion.
b. Repeat these observations with a few books in a stack. How does increasing the mass of the books affect the results?
c. Try other objects. Which objects move the least when the paper is pulled rapidly?