So far, we've covered in class that Newton's third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Meaning, that as I type and rest my hands on my laptop, my laptop is pushing up on my hands with the same amount of force.
That being said, does the Earth pull on the Moon with the same force that the Moon pulls on the Earth?
This video by Veritasium gives a little explanation and debunks a common misconception.
By now, hopefully it is clearer why Newton's third law is possible.
Now: why is it that no one wins the tug of war in this video?
(note: embedding was disabled for this video, but I really thought it was helpful)
No Win Tug of War
Newton's third law also rings true in this case. The two scientists pulled on the rope with the same force, however since there was no interaction between their feet and the ground, the scientists pulled each other together instead of one dominating the other.
See an example of successful tug of war:
The team on the left won not because they were stronger, but because the action-reaction force pair between their feet and the ground was greater than that on the right.
Hey Niara! This was a great blog post that really helped me to understand Newton's 3rd Law. Everything that we learned in class was mentioned throughout this post. The video showing the two teams in a tug-of-war reinforced my understanding of action and reaction pairs. The only thing that might have helped me to visualize this concept completely would be if there had been some kind of diagram that showed the action and reaction arrows. Although, even without that, you did a great job explaining Newton's 3rd Law.
ReplyDeleteThank you!