Contact and Non-Contact Forces

• Forces can also be classified based on whether they come into contact with the object they are acting on or not.

• A contact force is a force that touches the object it is acting on.

• Most forces are contact forces.

• We will discuss three special types of contact forces – friction, buoyancy and surface tension – in a later lesson.

• A non-contact force is a force that does not touch the object it is acting on. Instead of touching an object, non-contact forces act through a force field.

• There are only a few types of non-contact forces.

• We will discuss three types of non-contact forces – gravity, magnetism and electrostatic forces – in a later lesson.

Forces can be classified as contact or non-contact forces.

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