<p>This may be really obvious but for whatever reason I'm missing it. If I have an object with say a mass of 1kg, and I want to throw it horizontally at some velocity, how do I find the force (in newtons I would assume) that I should throw it with? I did this earlier in the year I think, but unfortunately I've forgotten it. ;)</p>
<p>I can get you part of the way there, but unfoutunately it is a somewhat complicated question. At least, unless I'm missing something obvious too.</p>
<p>Say you want to throw the mass at 3 m/s. Since it starts from rest, it goes from having a momentum of 0 kg<em>m/s to 3 kg</em>m/s, ie, and impulse of 3 kg<em>m/s. Impulse, J, equals force times time, F</em>t. There are obvious constraints on how this can be applied to someone throwing an object. It would be very hard to apply a 30 N force for .1 s. In fact, as long as you use a full arm's length throw, the more force you use the faster the ball and your hand accelerate and the less time, t, you have. Knowing the distance covered by your arm in a throw would help. There's probably some function you can make with velocity as a variable and arms length and mass of object as constants that will give you a force answer, but i'm way too lazy to go through the work</p>
<p>If you want to throw the object of a mass M at a velocity V you will need to extert a force F for T seconds. 1 newton exerted on 1 kg of mass for one second will result in a velocity of 1 m/s. The equation to solve this problem is as follows.</p>
<p>F=(V/T)M</p>