MISCONCEPTION: IT IS ALWAYS NECESSARY TO HAVE A DIRECT CONTACT IN ACTION AND

REACTION.
Reacting to Action
Materials
You will need the following items for these experiments:
Experiment 1: one rubber ball
Experiment 2: two doughnut magnets; a small plastic toy car or truck; 10 cm of thread; tape or glue
Experiment 3: a wooden block; a bucket of water
Procedures
.
1. Drop a rubber ball from a height of one meter. Catch it when it bounces back up to its
maximum height. Name the force which caused the ball to start moving. What must have
happened in order for the ball to bounce back to your hand? After the ball bounces and
starts to move upward, what happens to its motion? Why? Discuss your observations in terms
of Newtons Third Law of Motion.
2. With tape or glue, attach a doughnut magnet to the back of a small plastic toy car or truck.
Slowly bring the other magnet close to the back of the vehicle until the vehicle starts to roll
forward (the magnets should be of similar polarity, meaning that they repel each other).
Quickly pull away the magnet in your hand and let the car roll to a stop. What force made the
car move? What force made it stop? Describe all of the action/reaction pairs
in this case and draw a diagram to illustrate them. Next, suspend a magnet
from a 10 cm length of thread. Hold the end of the thread and bring the
hanging magnet toward the back of the vehicle (again, the magnets should be
of similar polarity). Describe what happens this time and why. How does this
relate to Newtons Third Law of Motion.
3. Place a wooden block in a bucket of water so that it floats. Push the block
down into the water and release it. What happens? Why? What do you notice
if you push the block down to greater and greater depths in the bucket? How
can you explain this in terms of forces?

Reacting to Action
1. When the ball is dropped, the force of gravity causes it to move and drop toward the ground.
The floor exerts a force on the ball to make it change its direction of motion and move back up. As it travels upward,
the ball slows down. This is because the force of gravity is now acting on it in the direction opposite to its motion. If
we think about this in terms of Newtons Third Law, we would say that the floor exerts an equal and opposite force

on the falling ball, so it stops the fall of the ball and then provides and upward acceleration of magnitude g to the
ball. Without a loss of energy when it bounces (for example when using a superball), the ball would bounce back up
to the same height from which it was originally dropped.
2. Magnetic force is what starts the toy vehicle moving. In other words, direct contact between the objects is not
necessary. it is the hand that pushes the magnet forward and it is the magnetic force between the magnets that
causes the toy vehicle to move. Once the magnetic force is removed, the car would (according to Newtons First
Law) continue to move indefinitely in a straight line at a constant speed. But it doesnt, it slows down and stops. It
experiences a negative acceleration, or deceleration. According to Newtons Second Law, for deceleration to take
place a force must be applied. In this case, it is the force of friction between the vehicles wheels and the table top or
floor and between the vehicles body and the air which caused the vehicle to change its motion.
In the second part of the experiment, with the magnet hanging from a thread, students will discover a different
result. As you slowly bring the suspended magnet closer to the magnet on the vehicle, the magnet on the thread will
be pushed backward with a force equal to the force it is exerting on the vehicle. The vehicle may move forward a
little, or may not move at all, depending on the weight of the vehicle and the type of surface it is trying to roll on.
But the magnet on the thread will definitely be pushed backward, away from the vehicle. Students may have felt this
force in their hand on the first trial, although they may not have realized its significance.
3. It is the buoyant force which causes the block in the bucket to rise to the top of the water and float. The pressure
of the liquid increases with depth. Therefore, the upward force of the water on the bottom of an object is greater than
the downward force of the water on the top of the object. Objects only sink if their weight is larger than the net
upward force of the water (recall that weight is the force equal to the objects mass times the acceleration due to
gravity).
Note that it is harder to push the block deeper into the bucket because the force of the water increases with depth.
How can you tell? You can feel the block pushing harder on your hand as you try to push it deeper into the water. try
to push the block to various depths using only one or two fingers. The results become very clear!

National Science and Mathematics Standards for the Newtons Laws Materials