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If you are going to have an assistant create tactile graphics for this module, you will need to download the file named Phy1150.zip , which contains the svg file for this module. Extract the svg file from the zip file and provide them to your assistant.

Also, if you are going to use tactile graphics, it probably won't be necessary for you to perform the graph board exercises. However, you shouldstill walk through the graph board exercises in your mind because I will often embed important physics concepts in the instructions for doing the graph boardexercises.

In each case where I am providing an svg file for the creation of tactile graphics, I will identify the name of the appropriate svg file and display animage of the contents of the file for the benefit of your assistant. As explained here , those images will be mirror images of the actual images so that your assistant can emboss the image from the back ofthe paper and you can explore it from the front.

I will also display a non-mirror-image version of the image so that your assistant can easily read the text in the image.

Also in those cases, I will provide a table of key-value pairs that explain how the Braille keys in the image relate to text or objects in the image.

Things can be confusing

One of the more confusing things about physics textbooks can be their treatment of the units in which force is measured and reported. Severaldifferent units are often used including:

  • newton
  • poundal
  • dyne
  • pound-force
  • gram-force
  • kilogram-force

The first three units in the above list are said to be absolute units of force because they are measured in fundamental units of mass, length, and time. The last three units are tied directly to the gravitationalattraction between the earth and other objects.

The newton, which is an SI derived unit, is possibly the most universally accepted unit of force in the year 2011.

Force equals the product of mass and acceleration

You learned in an earlier module that the force that is required to cause a given mass to be accelerated by a given amount is proportional to the product ofthe mass and the acceleration. If we specify mass and acceleration in consistent units, we can write

f = m * a

where

  • f is force
  • m is mass
  • a is acceleration

SI units and the newton

Many physics books use a system of units called SI units . SI is an abbreviation for a French name, which I am unable to pronounce, andwhich is probably also not compatible with your screen reader and your Braille display.

I won't attempt to explain much about SI units in this module. I provided some information in an earlier module titled Units and Dimensional Analysis . Also, you can probably find a goodexplanation in your textbook, and if not, you can Google SI units and find hundreds of web pages that explain the system in varying levels of detail.

Tables of SI units

Most of those references will probably also provide tables for the units, but those tables may be partially incompatible with your screen reader andBraille display due to the extensive use of superscripts. Therefore, I will provide tables that should be accessible in Figure 1 and Figure 2 .

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Source:  OpenStax, Accessible physics concepts for blind students. OpenStax CNX. Oct 02, 2015 Download for free at https://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11294/1.36
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