Question

Suppose a man is sitting on a chair and exerting 100 N of force downward, while a spring beneath the chair exerts 150 N of force upward. If you assign a negative value to the downward force, what is the net force of this system?(1 point)
Responses

250 N
250 N

-50 N
-50 N

50 kg
50 kg

50 N

Answer 1

To find the net force in the system when the downward force is assigned a negative value, we can use the following approach:

1. The downward force exerted by the man is -100 N (since we assigned it a negative value).
2. The upward force exerted by the spring is +150 N.

Now, we can calculate the net force (F_net) using the formula:

\[ F_{\text{net}} = F_{\text{upward}} + F_{\text{downward}} \]

Substituting in the values:

\[ F_{\text{net}} = 150\, N + (-100\, N) \]
\[ F_{\text{net}} = 150\, N - 100\, N \]
\[ F_{\text{net}} = 50\, N \]

Thus, the net force of the system is **50 N**.