Which of Newton's Laws is illustrated by the scenario of the woman applying brakes suddenly causing her purse to slide down the windshield?

The scenario of a woman suddenly applying the brakes in a vehicle, causing her purse to slide down the windshield, illustrates Newton's First Law of Motion, commonly referred to as the law of inertia. This law states that an object in motion will remain in motion, and an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force.

In this case, when the woman abruptly brakes, the car decelerates rapidly due to the force applied to the brakes. However, the purse, which was moving with the car, tends to maintain its state of motion due to inertia. When the speed of the car decreases suddenly, the purse does not immediately stop but instead continues to slide forward until it reaches the windshield, where it is stopped by the surface. This clearly demonstrates that the purse, initially in motion, remains in motion due to its inertia until a net force (the windshield) acts upon it.

The other options, while they represent important principles of physics, do not apply to this scenario. The second law relates to the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration, while the third law discusses action and reaction forces. The law of universal gravitation deals with the gravitational attraction between two masses. None of these concepts directly explain the observable