PUSHING CONTAINERS

today i decided to move around some things in my room. as i pushed a container of books under my bed, i realized that physics was involved! both STATIC and KINETIC friction played a role in my moving process. when the container was still, the normal force and weight were equal and opposite so they cancelled. in a FBD, the force of static friction would be in the opposite direction of my push. the force of static friction and the amount of force i pushed would remain equal until the container acclerated. in order for the container to accelerate, i had to exert a force which was greater than its maximum static friction force. kinetic friction is the friction when an object slides along another, or in this case, the container sliding along the carpet. kinetic friction occurred as i was pushing the container at a constant velocity meaning acceleration was zero. the magnitude of the maximum static friction force was greater than the magnitude of the kinetic friction force.