What term refers to any action that creates a push or pull capable of changing the motion of an object?

• A. Force
• B. Gravity
• C. Momentum
• D. Mass

Answer: (A)

Anything that creates a push or pull capable of changing an object's motion is force. This idea is tied to how motion changes: a net force on an object produces acceleration, as captured by F = ma. Gravity is an example of a force—one specific push or pull due to mass attracting mass. Momentum describes how much motion an object has (mass times velocity) and it changes when forces act, but momentum itself is not the action that changes motion. Mass is a property that tells how much matter an object has and how resistant it is to acceleration, but it isn’t the action that causes motion to change. So the term for the action that can alter motion is force.