You can’t

touch
without
being
touched.
Newton’s Third Law
A force cannot exist
alone. Forces always
exist in pairs.
Newton’s first two
laws of motion explain
how the motion of a
single object changes.
Newton’s Third Law
Newton’s third law describes
something else that happens
when one object exerts a
force on another object.
Newton’s Third Law
According to Newton’s third law
of motion, whenever one object
exerts a force on a second object,
the second object exerts an
equal and opposite force on the
first object.
Newton’s Third Law
According to Newton’s
third law of motion, forces
always act in equal but
opposite pairs.
Newton’s Third Law
Action and Reaction
Forces: These two
forces are equal in size
and opposite in direction.
Newton’s Third Law
Either force can be
considered the action force
or the reaction force.
Newton’s Third Law
Newton’s Third Law of
Motion states: for every
action, there is an equal
but opposite reaction.
Newton’s Third Law
This means that when you
push on a wall, the wall
pushes back on you with a
force equal in strength to the
force you exerted.
• The action force causes the Action-Reaction
water to move in the Forces and
direction of the action force. Motion
• However, the water also exerts its
equal and opposite reaction force
on the swimmer.
• The reaction force acts on the
swimmer and pushes her forward
through the water.
You constantly use action-reaction Action -
force pairs as you move about. Reaction

When you jump, you push

down on the ground.

The ground then pushes up on

you. It is this upward force
that pushes you into the air.
 Action -
When the rocket fuel is Reaction
ignited, a hot gas is produced.
As the gas molecules
collide with the inside
engine walls, the walls
exert a force that
pushes them out of the
bottom of the engine.
 Action-Reaction Forces Do Not Cancel
The reason is that the The action force acts on
action and reaction the water, and the
forces do not act on the reaction force acts on
same object. the swimmer
Newton’s Third Law
consider the interaction between a baseball bat and a baseball.

The baseball forces the bat to the right (an action);

the bat forces the ball to the left (the reaction).