11-25

Physics Journal of the Day Kyle Tobolski November 25, 2008 Today in class we discussed Newton’s third law of motion. We reviewed how there is a equal and reaction force, and reviewed examples using Newton’s third law. Newton’s third law states that “All forces arise from the interaction of particles, and when one particle exerts a force on a second particle there is always an equal and opposite force by the second particle on the first particle.” The mathematical statement for Newton’s third law is if Fa->b then, Fb-a=-Fa->b. The examples we reviewed covered action-reaction pairs which featured vectors helping to describe reaction to the given action. For example if a head bumps a ball, then the ball bumps the head. This is because every action has a reaction force exerting from both objects in which the action is taking place. Another example could be a windshield hitting a bug. The action force is the windshield hitting the bug, while the reaction force is the bug hitting the windshield. Head bumps ball Ball bumps head