Normal Force for Dummy Physics Students

normal force diagram

Back in the bad old days when anyone with a pulse could rake in the bucks at a content farm, the most prolific contributors would pick some random topic and vomit out half a dozen articles at a time (many did this on two or more sites!). The hard work of writing, unfortunately, left precious little time for research and fact-checking, but accuracy and usefulness were never the point. Those days are gone, but some people still think they can make a go of it as a "freelancer," people like Grace Sanchez. Grace visited "The Magic of Natural Force" upon EzineArticles.com, and then apparently decided she wasn't making cash fast enough and disappeared...

We took a look at Sanchez's article, and to be honest, we think this mysterious "NF" is supposed to be the normal force, although Grace also manages to apply the same term to gravity, friction. and a few other natural phenomena. But we'll let you see it in her own words...

Have you ever wondered how it is that when you sit on a chair you don't go down like you would if you were sitting on a bean chair? Well the answer is simple it is the act of Natural Force. If you take a table and put an object on top, the object does not sink in but it stays up, this is because when you put your weight down there is an applied force pushing it back up. A car for example, if it is 80, 000N then the natural force of the street is 80, 000N so that the street can resist the car that is being driven on it.  OK, well, we still aren't certain what this "natural force" is supposed to be... rigidity? friction? malleability? Oh wait, we have it: the normal force! Whatever she calls it, Grace is pretty sure that it's important:

"This is very effective to our everyday lifestyle because although sometimes it could be very comfortable depending on the material it could be very messy and things could easily get lost. Also, if the force did not exist then it could also be dangerous..."

We're still not sure, but we think perhaps Grace heard something about the normal force and decided to earn some cash babbling about it. Hard telling... but while we're here, we're pretty sure no car "is 80, 000N" – that's equivalent to a weight of about 9 tons.
What we consider most distressing is that this stuff is out there and some poor schmuck looking up "natural force" (and not the cosmetics brand) may run across it and think it's useful. It isn't. It's drivel, and the person who wrote it is more than deserving of the Dumbass of the Day award we're giving her.

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