Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Force is a push or a pull, like pulling a wagon or pushing a car. Gravity is a force that attracts things to one another. Weight is a measure of how much gravity is pulling on an object.

Gravity accelerates all things equally. Which means all things speed up (accelerate) the same amount as they fall. Acceleration is the rate of change in velocity. In other words, how fast is a change in speed and/or a change in direction happening.

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9 Responses to “Newton’s Third Law of Motion”

  1. A rocket can travel through space because it’s constantly throwing material out the back end which causes it to move forward. it doesn’t matter if there’s a vacuum or of the rocket is in an atmosphere… it’s got to do with how the forces are applied. Do a search in the sear bar for “rocket teleclass” and watch it – it will probably answer a lot of your questions!

  2. Aimee Cox says:

    Can you explain how a rocket can travel in space? We learned that space is a vacuum so I don’t know how it does.

  3. Yes, our teleclasses involve kids as well as the summer e-camp program that will be open from June – August.

  4. Tatiana Spencer says:

    Ilana, 11, here! I would love to see you teach a children’s class – do you have any videos of you with kids? And do you have kids? And did you home-school them? 🙂

  5. The lamp doesn’t have support in the horizontal direction, similar to a roller skate. If you push vertically on the lamp along its centerline, you’ll have the same effect as the wall. Does that make sense?

  6. Nicole Duckworth says:

    If the object your pushing (like a lamp) pushes back with the same amount of force, why can you eventually topple it over?

  7. Stacey Moore says:

    you are awesome

  8. When you push on a wall what happens? You get moved back right? This is the wall transferring energy back to you.
    If the wall were made of cardboard, you might knock the wall over because it was not strong enough to send energy back to you.

    It’s that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction – when you push on the wall the wall pushes back with the same amount of force but in the opposite direction.
    Does that help?

  9. Lynn Glasheen says:

    If the same amount of pressure is pushed back then how come when you push on a wall with almost no pressure it does not fall over?