Free body diagram
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Drawing a free body diagram is a method often used by physicists working out kinetics or other mechanics problems to show all the mechanical vector forces acting on the given free body (or bodies) at any given time. Doing so can make it easier to understand the forces in relation to one another and suggest to the physicist the proper trigonometry to apply in order to find the solution to the problem.
One example of a free body diagram is the following: Take for example, a block of wood resting on a table. First a dot is drawn at the block of wood's center of gravity. Then from their a vector is drawn to represent gravity's effect on the block of wood. A vector of equal length would be drawn in the other direction to show the normal force from the table keeping the block stationary.
See Also
Concordia College physics course (http://www.cord.edu/dept/physics/p128/lecture99_11.html) - The Normal Force and Free-body DiagramsTemplate:Physics-stub