Notice that some forces need contact between two objects (contact forces) while magnetic forces can act at a distance (non-contact forces)
Some forces need two things to touch. Your hands touch a door to push it and a wagon handle to pull it. Friction between shoes and a path needs touching too. These are contact forces.
Think about kicking a ball. Your foot must touch the ball to send it flying, so a kick is a contact force.
Some forces work without any touching. A magnet can pull some metal things toward it across a small gap. Gravity also pulls a dropped ball down with nothing touching it. These are non-contact forces.
Hold a magnet near a paperclip. The clip slides to the magnet before anything touches it.
To sort a force, ask yourself one question: did the two things touch? If yes, it is a contact force. If they pulled or pushed without touching, it is a non-contact force.
Contact forces need touching, like a kick, while non-contact forces, like magnetism, can pull without ever touching.
Reading summaries adapted from OpenStax College Physics (CC BY 4.0), openstax.org.
You have met pushes and pulls before, and what happens when two of them tie. The pushes and pulls you made by hand all needed touching. Now there is a name for that. Mia kicks a ball across the field.
Her foot has to touch the ball to move it. What kind of force is a kick?
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.