Chapter 6

Newton’s Third Law of Motion—

Action and Reaction
Forces and Interactions
 Force – a push or a pull
 Forces always exist in pairs
 An interaction between two things
 If you lean against the wall
 You push on the wall
 The wall pushes on you
Newton’s Third Law
 If two objects interact, the magnitude of
the force exerted on object 1 by object 2
is equal to the magnitude of the force
simultaneously exerted on object 2 by
object 1, and these two forces are
opposite in direction
 For every action there is an equal and
opposite reaction
 Even though it is called a reaction force, the reaction
force is happening exactly at the same time the
action force (not after the reaction force)
Identifying Action & Reaction
Forces
 Identify the action and reaction forces for
the following
 Hitting a tennis ball with a racket
 The racket exerts a force on the ball
 The ball exerts a force on the racket
 Kicking a football
 The foot exerts a force on the football
 The football exerts a force back on the foot
Action and Reaction Forces
 What are the action-reaction forces of a
bird as it flies through the air?
 A birds wings push the air downwards
 The air reacts by pushing the bird upward
 Find the action reaction forces for a
boulder falling to the Earth
 The Earth pulls the boulder down
 The boulder pulls the Earth up
Action and Reaction of Different
Masses
 Think about the Earth and boulder example
 How can the forces be equal and opposite?
 You can clearly see the boulder moving, but there is no
apparent movement in the Earth
 The explanation is actually quite simple:
(Newton’s 2nd Law) F = ma
 The mass of the Earth is much greater than the mass of
the boulder.
 Therefore, the acceleration (movement) of the Earth is
much smaller than the acceleration (movement) of the
boulder
Action & Reaction Forces of Different
Masses
 A gun recoils when it is fired. The recoil is the
result of action-reaction force pairs. As the gases
from the gunpowder explosion expand, the gun
pushes the bullet forwards and the bullet pushes
the gun backwards. The acceleration of the
recoiling gun is ...
A. greater than the acceleration of the bullet.
B. smaller than the acceleration of the bullet.
C. the same size as the acceleration of the bullet.
 Smaller than the acceleration of the bullet—the
gun has a larger mass, therefore a smaller
acceleration
Do Action and Reaction Forces
Cancel?
 Action and reaction forces are equal and opposite
—so why don’t they cancel each other out?
 Think of kicking a ball
 Action: force of foot on ball
 Reaction: force of ball on foot
 The action and reaction forces are equal and
opposite, but they act on different objects,
therefore they don’t cancel out and the ball
moves
Do Action and Reaction Forces
Cancel?
 Suppose two people kicked the same ball, in
opposite directions with equal forces.
 What are the action-reaction forces?
 Force of one foot(A) on ball(B)
 Force of ball(B) on foot(A)
 Force of other foot(C) on ball(B)
 Force of ball(B) on foot(C)
 The force on the ball will cancel (since the action
forces are equal and opposite)
 The force of the ball on each foot will not cancel
since they are acting on different objects
The Horse—Cart Problem
 A horse cannot pull a cart because the cart will
pull back on the horse with an equal and
opposite force!
 Pull of a horse on a cart and the reaction of the cart on
the horse are internal—forces that act and react within
a system.
 Internal forces contribute nothing to the acceleration of
the system; therefore they can be neglected
 To move the cart, there must be an interaction
between the horse—cart system and the ground
 Think of pushing a car—you cannot just push on the
dashboard and expect it to move; you must interact
with the ground
Action Equals Reaction
 If you hit something; it hits you back
equally hard!