May The Forces Be With You
This is the force that pulls every object towards the centre of the Earth.
What is Gravity?
This force acts between two touching surfaces and opposes motion.
What is friction?
This is the basic unit of life that makes up every living thing.
What is a cell?
A cricketer polishes one side of the ball to change airflow, making the ball do this in flight.
What is swing?
In this film, scientists use ancient DNA preserved in amber to bring dinosaurs back to life on an island theme park.
What is Jurassic Park?
When two forces on an object are equal in size and opposite in direction, they're described this way.
What is balanced?
This is the type of friction acting on anything moving through air.
What is air resistance (drag)?
Solid, liquid and gas are three examples of this.
What are states of matter?
Football and rugby boots have these on the bottom to increase grip with the ground.
What are studs?
This small, green, 900-year-old Jedi Master trained Luke Skywalker on Dagobah.
Who is Yoda?
This is the SI unit used to measure the size of a force.
What is the newton (N)?
Rubbing your hands together on a cold day converts movement into this form of energy.
What is heat (thermal energy)?
This gas is needed by humans to breathe and is released by plants.
What is oxygen?
A track cyclist crouches low over the handlebars to reduce this force, which slows them down.
What is air resistance (drag)?
This fictional faster-than-light travel method lets Star Trek's starships cross huge distances quickly.
What is warp drive?
Gravity and magnetism are both examples of this type of force, because the objects never actually touch.
What is a non-contact force?
This type of friction is smaller than sliding friction — exactly why wheels and ball bearings are used.
What is rolling friction?
This process describes how plants use sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to make their own food.
What is photosynthesis?
A tightrope walker holds a long pole out horizontally while balancing — this helps lower and stabilise this point of their body, making it easier to stay balanced.
What is the centre of mass (centre of gravity)?
In this 2015 film, based on an Andy Weir novel, astronaut Mark Watney survives alone on Mars using science.
What is The Martian?
This is the force that pushes back on an object when it's resting on a surface, acting at right angles to that surface.
What is the normal force
Engineers add this kind of substance, like oil, between moving parts to reduce friction.
What is a lubricant?
This is the term for a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by chemical means, and is represented by its own symbol on the periodic table.
What is an element?
Formula 1 cars use upside-down wing shapes to generate this force, pushing the car onto the track for extra grip.
What is downforce?
This is the term for a hypothetical tunnel through space-time connecting two distant points as a shortcut.
What is a wormhole?