Newton's second law of motion, also known as the law of force and acceleration, relates an object's mass and the force applied to it to its resulting acceleration. This law can be mathematically expressed as F = ma, where F represents the net force applied to an object, m is the object's mass, and a is its resulting acceleration.

To understand this concept, let's consider an example. Imagine pushing a shopping cart and a car with the same force. Since the car has a greater mass than the shopping cart, according to Newton's second law, the car will experience less acceleration compared to the shopping cart.

To calculate the acceleration of an object, we can rearrange the formula as a = F/m. For instance, if a force of 10 Newtons is applied to an object with a mass of 2 kilograms, its acceleration would be 5 m/s^2.

It's important to note that the direction of the net force and the resulting acceleration is always in the same direction. If the force and acceleration have opposite directions, the object will experience deceleration or negative acceleration.