Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Introduction – The understanding of the physical sciences and the law governing it is not complete without the understanding of the different physical laws provided by Isaac Newton, whose contribution to the field of science is very important and crucial in the development of the human understanding of the physical forces governing the way of life. Newton’s Third Law of Motion – Newton’s Third Law of Motion is a part of Newton’s three different laws of motion which are interrelated with each other.

In the third law of motion, Newton posits that everything that exerts effort or force against something is also the recipient of an equal amount of force being exerted by the object to which the initial force was being applied to. Newton has a Latin translation, as well as the lengthy version of the third law of motion, which can be very confusing and very difficult to understand.

Browne simplified it a it b explaining the third law of motion in this context: "If body A pulls or pushes on body B, then body B also pulls or pushes on body A.

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The force on each body has the same magnitude, but the forces are oppositely directed" (Browne, p. 58). Why Newton’s Third Law is important to the ascent of science – Newton is one of the highly respected and veneered scientists of all time because of his contribution to the society and to the field of science in particular.

Because of his pioneering thoughts like the different laws of motion, other aspects involved in the physical sciences were allowed to flourish and many other scientists are more mentally equipped to tackle more scientific queries which previously cannot be explored because of the absence of the understanding of man in the laws of motion and other important physical laws that Newton helped develop (National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2006).

Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which posits the idea of the presence of an equal yet opposite force directed to the exerted force, provided an important groundwork for some important breakthroughs and discoveries involving the physical sciences; the third law of motion of Newton was important in the formulation of the law about the conservation of momentum; ideas like the propulsion of rockets and how they exert effort against the void in space, the action-reaction from the recoiling effect a gun manifests when firing and pushing out the bullet towards a certain direction, the line of thinking in sports science and other aspects of training, rehabilitation and performance enhancement with the use of the idea of the exertion of force and the presence of the action-reaction forces (Gibilisco, p. 188).

How the third Law relates to the First and Second Laws – The third law of Motion of Newton relates to the first and second laws through the state of being in motion or being at rest depending on the current state of an object and how another intervening force or object affects both the state of the first object and the second object. Using two tennis balls to illustrate the three different laws of motion of Newton and how they are related to each other by each becoming a momentary experience before undergoing the next stage or a change in the state of motion or non-movement, it can be deduced that the third law of Newton’s Law of Motion will have each of the two tennis balls when rolled towards each other using the same speed, moving and covering the same distance and meeting in the middle exerting the same amount of effort or force as that which is given by the opposite ball.

The two balls’ current stage experiencing the third law of motion originated from another stage wherein the two balls are undergoing one of the two other laws of motion; they may have been, prior to the collision resulting to the illustration of the third law of motion, manifesting the idea of the first law of motion, which states that both of the objects remain in their current state of motion or stillness until / unless an intervening force prompted them to change the nature of their movement or stillness. The two tennis balls may have been both at rest until a hand or an object put them in motion, wherein with equal variables applied to each tennis ball resulting in the illustration of the third law of motion. The second law of motion is related to the third law because it discusses the use of force used to intervene upon objects at rest, prompting them to move and the force of the moving object is proportional to the force applied to it that prompted it to move (Browne, p. 60).

Conclusion – The laws of motion that Newton espoused was as much applauded by the scientific community during his time, and even way past his time, as it was criticized heavily by some of his contemporaries in the scientific circle, yet, despite what had transpired, the laws of motion of Newton remains to be one of the important pillars in the understanding of physical laws governing everything. Newton was a genius and his contribution to the society, like the ideas leading and originating from the laws of motion, is something that has indeed greatly affected the way human life was shaped over time.

References: Browne, Michael. (July, 1999). Schaum's Outline of Physics for Engineering & Science. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies. Gibilisco, Stan. (August 2002). Physics Demystified: A Self-Teaching Guide. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (March 16, 2006). Newton's Third Law Applied to Aerodynamics. Retrieved May 6, 2008, from http://www. grc. nasa. gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/newton3. html