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Everyday Physics of Motion, a free science course on Tomo

Everyday Physics of Motion

Like Duolingo, but for Everyday Physics of Motion. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

For the part of you with thirty open tabs that never became anything.

A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Making Sense of Everyday Motion and Force and Energy in Action. It starts from scratch.

12 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Newton the Newt, the guide who teaches the Everyday Physics of Motion course
Everyday Physics of Motion
with Newton the Newt
12
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in Everyday Physics of Motion

  • Moving objects keep moving indefinitely unless an external force acts on them
  • Friction between surfaces and air resistance are actual forces that actively slow things down
  • Objects do not consume or run out of an internal 'motion fuel' as they coast
  • Brakes slow the car, but no forward pushing force acts on your body
  • Your body simply keeps traveling at the car's previous cruising speed
  • The seatbelt applies the backward force needed to slow your body down along with the car
  • Weight depends on gravity pulling an object down, dropping to zero in free fall
  • Mass measures how stubbornly an object resists being sped up or slowed down
  • An object's mass and its resistance to being pushed do not change in space
  • A heavier object needs proportionally more force to achieve the same rate of acceleration as a lighter one
  • Bringing a heavier rolling vehicle to a stop requires more braking force than stopping a light one traveling at the same speed
  • Double the mass requires double the net force to change its velocity at the same rate
  • Empty space contains virtually no friction or air drag to slow a craft down
  • Rocket engines are only required to change speed or change direction, not to maintain steady motion
  • An object in motion keeps coasting at constant speed indefinitely with zero fuel consumption
  • Gravity pulls harder on heavier objects, but heavier objects are equally harder to accelerate, balancing out perfectly
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives Everyday Physics of Motion the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Why Moving Things Keep Going

When a skateboard rolls across pavement and gradually slows to a stop, what is doing the work?

Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.

Course map

Where Everyday Physics of Motion takes you

Decode the invisible forces behind how objects move, fall, and collide in daily life. Learn why you lurch forward when a bus stops, how crumple zones save lives, and why everything falls at the same speed.

  1. 1

    Making Sense of Everyday Motion

    • The Inertia You Feel Every Day
    • Gravity, Air, and Freefall
  2. 2

    Force and Energy in Action

    • Collisions and Momentum
    • Trading Work and Energy

2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
The Bestie

Everyday Physics of Motion is taught in the The Bestie style: your friend who just gets it. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

Keep going

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Start Everyday Physics of Motion today.

Download Tomo, search Everyday Physics of Motion, and play your first lesson in under a minute.