The upward normal force exerted by the floor is 620 n on an elevator passenger who weighs 650 n. is the passenger accelerating? if so, what are the magnitude and direction of the acceleration?

downward

Explanation:

There are two forces acting on the passenger on the elevator:

- The upward normal force, R

- The weight of the passenger, W

Therefore we can write Newton's second law as

where a is the acceleration of the passenger and m its mass. Here we took upward as positive direction, so that R is positive.

The mass of the passenger can also be written as

where g = 9.8 m/s^2 is the acceleration of gravity.

So the equation becomes

And solving for a, we find the acceleration:

and the negative sign means the direction is downward.