Students' representation about Newton law: Consequences of "zero intuition"

Abstract

Newton's laws can represent in the language of verbal, mathematical, physical, and visual. Students who understood concept would express the concepts in various representations consistently. In this research, a mathematical presentation used to reveal the student's concept understanding about Newton first law. The results showed that 21.87% of the students changed the mathematical presentation of Newton's first law (∑ F+ =0) into verbal representation incorrectly. Changing the mathematical form of Newton's first law into the form of (0= ∑ F+) caused the percentage of students who did not respond increased, further concluded that "zero intuition" in the equation of Newton first law caused misconceptions.