Newton's 3rd Law

Question

Imagine someone is standing on the edge of a canoe, and dives off of it into the water.What would happen to the canoe? Draw a diagram and identify the force pairs to support your answer.

Answer 1

Hi Angelic! This is a great example of Newton's 3rd Law. Newton's 3rd Law deals specifically with the interaction of two objects with a force. Everyone seems to remember that Newton's 3rd Law says "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". The problem is, if this is all we remember we are missing an important point! The "action" needs to be a force created by one object, and the "reaction" needs to be created by a DIFFERENT object. In this case, one object is the person, and the other one is the canoe.

When the person jumps off the canoe, the canoe exerts a force on their feet that propels them off the canoe and into the water. Newton's 3rd Law means that when the person exerts a force on the canoe- the person must exert an equal and opposite force on the canoe! This means that if the person jumps FORWARD, then the canoe will be pushed BACKWARD.

I hope this helps!