Myth Buster

Resultant Force

By: Mahnoor Farooqi - Researcher

Everyone has heard of Newton’s Laws of Motion. It is afterall an integral part of learning and applying Physics. But sometimes these Laws can be difficult to understand and cause confusion to students.

The third Law specifically: “Every action has an equal opposite reaction” causes many misconceptions. Many believe that when a Force is applied to an object because an equal force is applied back the resultant Force acting on an object will always be zero.

This is not true for a number of reasons. The most important one and also the easiest to understand is that the force is not being applied to the same body. Say body A exerts a force on Body B (action), Body B will then exert a Force on Body A (reaction). The ‘action’ is happening on body B and ‘reaction’ is happening on Body A. Only two forces acting on the same body will be able to cancel out.