Question

I am confused about Newton's second law...

Answer 1

Have you tried searching "Newton's Second Law" in Google or YouTube and look at what comes up?

Answer 2

Yes but is is still very confusing. My science class teacher explained it very quickly once so I didn't catch it.

Answer 3

you need to get this before you can ever really understand anything in mechanics, and that is really important. so you really should keep asking here if you are not getting a good answer.

in the world of Newton/ classical physics, time and distance are assumed to be fixed. you can measure with a stop watch and tape measure. everything else is abstract or derived. things like speed are the distance measured by the tape divided by the time measured by the clock.

acceleration is calculated in exactly the same way, using measurements of times and distance. acceleration is the change of velocity with distance, so we are back to the clock and the measuring tape.

and then we can explain add in the notion of mass by using a weighing scale. and we then end up with the idea of force.

and the whole system is completely coherent, so we use it for everything.

this, sadly, is not from a personal seance with Newton, but the translation of his own words. and It's all over on Wiki:

"If a force generates a motion, a double force will generate double the motion, a triple force triple the motion, whether that force be impressed altogether and at once, or gradually and successively. And this motion (being always directed the same way with the generating force), if the body moved before, is added to or subtracted from the former motion, according as they directly conspire with or are directly contrary to each other; or obliquely joined, when they are oblique, so as to produce a new motion compounded from the determination of both."

good luck!! keep asking!!