Reaction (physics)

As described by the third of Newton's laws of motion of classical mechanics, all forces occur in pairs such that if one object exerts a force on another object, then the second object exerts an equal and opposite reaction force on the first. The third law is also more generally stated as: "To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts." The attribution of which of the two forces is the action and which is the reaction is arbitrary. Either of the two can be considered the action, while the other is its associated reaction.

When something is exerting force on the ground, the ground will push back with equal force in the opposite direction. In certain fields of applied physics, such as biomechanics, this force by the ground is called 'ground reaction force'; the force by the object on the ground is viewed as the 'action'.

When someone wants to jump, he or she exerts additional downward force on the ground ('action'). Simultaneously, the ground exerts upward force on the person ('reaction'). If this upward force is greater than the person's weight, this will result in upward acceleration. When these forces are perpendicular to the ground, they are also called a normal force.

Likewise, the spinning wheels of a vehicle attempt to slide backward across the ground. If the ground is not too slippery, this results in a pair of friction forces: the 'action' by the wheel on the ground in backward direction, and the 'reaction' by the ground on the wheel in forward direction. This forward force propels the vehicle.

The Earth, among other planets, orbits the Sun because the Sun exerts a gravitational pull that acts as a centripetal force, holding the Earth to it, which would otherwise go shooting off into space. If the Sun's pull is considered an action, then Earth simultaneously exerts a reaction as a gravitational pull on the Sun. Earth's pull has the same amplitude as the Sun but in the opposite direction. Since the Sun's mass is so much larger than Earth's, the Sun does not generally appear to react to the pull of Earth, but in fact it does, as demonstrated in the animation (not to precise scale). A correct way of describing the combined motion of both objects (ignoring all other celestial bodies for the moment) is to say that they both orbit around the center of mass, referred to in astronomy as the barycenter, of the combined system.

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