Dynamics Notes
Identifying Action and Reaction Forces
Forces are interactions between objects, like conversations are
interactions between people. Newton's Third
Law tells us that forces always arise in pairs, and two objects
are always involved. The Newton's Third Law interaction is always of
the form:
A pushes/pulls B.
B pushes/pulls A.
One of these forces is called the action force, and the other one
is called the reaction force - it doesn't matter which is which. For
example, if:
You push book. (Action force)
then Newton's Third Law says that:
Book pushes you. (Reaction force)
Identifying Reaction Forces Quiz
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last update January 1, 2009 by JL
Stanbrough