Re: Newton's 3rd Law

["Tom K. McCarthy" <mcca6300@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov>]

What's wrong with the notion of action/reaction?  By using concrete 
examples to help the student experience Newton's 3rd Law, it seems quite 
natural to describe these as action/reaction, and, consequently, we find 
that forces aways occur in pairs.

> Now get them to explain it to you and kill that action/reaction 
> thing in the egg. To me, Newton's laws are nothing more than an 
> operational definition of the word "force." The first two laws tell 
> you what a force does -- causes an acceleration -- and the third law 
> tells you that really there are no forces. There are _interactions_ 
> between particles and every interaction necessarily involves a _pair_ 
> of forces -- each particle interacts with the other one. It is just a 
> way of saying that in an interaction, neither particle is priviledged 
> in any way.
>
> Paul J. Camp                   "The Beauty of the Universe
> Assistant Professor of Physics  consists not only of unity
> Coastal Carolina University     in variety but also of 
> Conway, SC   29526              variety in unity.
> pjcamp@csd1.coastal.edu             --Umberto Eco
> (803)349-2227                         The Name of the Rose
> fax: (803)349-2926

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TK McCarthy   Email:mcca6300@spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov