The basic idea I want you to remember about Newton’s Third Law is that forces come in pairs. The wheels on a car spin, and as they do they grip the road and push the road back while at the same time the road pushes forwards on the wheel.

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Review for Forces and Newton’s Three Laws of Motion:

1. Newton’s First Law is an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless a force acts against it.
2. Inertia is a quality of an object that determines how difficult it is to get that object to move, to stop moving or to change directions.
3. Force is a push or a pull on something.
4. Newton’s Second Law is F=ma or Force equals mass x acceleration. In other words, the more mass something has and/or the faster it’s accelerating, the more force it will put on whatever it hits.
5. The more mass something has, the more force that’s needed to get it to accelerate. a=F/m
6. Things accelerate because there is a net force acting upon them.
7. Things stop accelerating (maintain a constant velocity) because the forces acting on them have equaled out.
8. Newton’s Third Law states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Click here to go to next lesson on Applying Newton’s Laws.

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