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SCIENCE

FIRST QUARTER 8
Module 2

Newton’s Third Law of Motion:

Law of Interaction

Most Essential Learning Competency: Infer that when a body exerts

a force on another, an equal amount of force is exerted back on it

(S8FE-Ia16)
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To the Learners
Greetings to the learner who is going to study this module! Prior to immersing yourself in this new lesson, kindly
set aside possible distractions that might cause delays in your task. Instructions are given in each part to guide
as you progress through the module, with aims of you obtaining the objectives and at the same time hopefully
having fun.
General Directions:

1. Read and follow carefully the instructions found in each part of the module.
2. Keep in your Science 8 notebook a list of your takeaway concepts as you perform each activity.
3. Make sure to analyze each post-test question to measure how much you have learned.
4. Let your facilitator or guardian evaluate your answers after finishing the module.
5. Enjoy studying, keep safe, and God bless!

“Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty
in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works
belong."

~Albert Einstein

Expectations
By the end of this module, you will infer that when a body exerts a force on another, an equal amount of force
is exerted back at it.

Specifically, the module aims for you to…

 explain Newton’s Third Law of motion;

 explain why action and reaction forces do not cancel each other; and
 cite applications of Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Pre-test
Directions: Read the questions carefully. Write the letter of the correct answer on the blank provided before the number.

____1. A construction worker exerts a force of 36 N on a wheelbarrow. How much force in return does the
wheelbarrow exert on the worker?
A. 0 B. 18 N C. 36 N D. 72 N
____2. A person on a skateboard pushes off the ground with their foot. This caused them to accelerate at a
rate of 5 m/s2. If the person weighs 550 N with respect to gravity, how strong were they pushed off the
ground?
A. 56 N B. 281 N C. 445 N D. 550 N
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____3. A child pushes a book against a vertical wall. What are the action-reaction forces involved in the
vertical plane (y-axis) of this process?

i. Applied force of the child on the book

ii. Applied force of the book on the child
iii. Upward frictional force of the wall on the book
iv. Downward gravitational force of Earth on the book

A. i and ii B. i and iii C. iii and iv D. ii and iv

____4. Car A, having a mass of 450 kg, was involved in a collision accident with Car B, which had a mass of
650 kg. What could be said about the force experienced by heavier car with respect to the lighter car?
A. Both cars experience the same amount of force.
B. The magnitude cannot be determined from this data.
C. Car B experiences a greater magnitude of force than Car A.
D. Car A experiences a greater magnitude of force than Car B.

____5. Which best describes the statement of Newton’s Third Law of Motion?
A. An interaction always occurs among two objects.
B. It is completely distinct from the first two laws of motion.
C. There is a maximum of two forces involved between interacting objects.
D. The magnitude of forces in an action-reaction are equal but in opposite directions.

Looking Back
Part A. Directions: Analyze the illustrations and/or scenarios in answering the questions on the right. Highlight
the letter and corresponding statement of the best answer.

1. Which of these will make the coin fall straight into

the glass?
A. Blowing on the coin
B. Slowly pulling the cardboard
C. Abruptly pulling the cardboard
D. Flipping the cardboard upside down

For item number 2, refer to these statements: 2. If the net external force acting on an object is
zero, which among the statements are TRUE?
i. The object is stationary A. i only
ii. The object is in motion B. i and iv
iii. The object is travelling at a constant velocity
C. i and iii
iv. The object is travelling at a changing
D. ii and iv
velocity
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Part B. Directions: Determine whether the scenarios can be explained by either the first or second law of
motion. Color the text box GREEN if the first law best exemplifies the scenario, and use YELLOW if the
second law can explain this instead.

Image source: Image source: Image source:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik https://commons.wikimedia.org/wik
i/File:Hangman%27s_fracture.jpg i/File:Sepak_Takraw.jpg i/File:Policemen,_pushing_a_car.jpg

A car passenger is The sepak takraw ball’s The stationary car may
thrown forward when movement depends upon accelerate with respect to
the car suddenly stops. the players hitting it. the force and mass of the
two men pushing it.

Brief Introduction

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sumo_Wrestling_-_Tokyo.jpg

Do you know the sport sumo? In this Japanese full-contact sport, two wrestlers attempt to overpower
each other with aims of getting their competitor out of the ring, or for any body part to touch the ground other
than the soles of their feet. Try to imagine yourself as a sumo wrestler in a match. As you strike and crash at
each other, it is no doubt that you feel a force. But also think about your opponent which feels something, for
when they apply force towards you, the same goes for you applying force to them. In other words, there is a pair
of forces involved in the sport of sumo. Sir Isaac Newton realized that every force occurs in pairs and an “isolated
force” does not exist by itself. He therefore formulated the third law of motion to be involved with this basic
characteristic of forces. The third law can be briefly defined as such:
“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”
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If you wish to know more, the following activities will help to shape up your perception on what Newton’s Third
Law of Motion is about.

Activity
Title: Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Law of Interaction

Objective:

 Explain Newton’s third law of motion.

 Explain why action and reaction forces do not cancel each other.

Materials: Pencil, ruler,

Procedure:

1. Study the figure. Observe the state of motion of the book, the forces acting on it, and objects which apply

these forces.
Normal Force (FN) exerted by the table

Gravitational Force (FN) exerted by the earth

Figure 1: A book resting on a table

https://www.homeworklib.com/questions/817758/a-book-weighing-5-n-rests-on-top-of-a-table.

a) What is the object of interest in the diagram above? _______________________________

b) What are the external forces acting on the book? ___________________________________

c) What do you call the force exerted by the table to the book? __________________________

d) What do you call the force exerted by the earth to the book? __________________________

e) Are the forces balanced or unbalanced? Explain.

__________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________

We can consider the book as a system. A system is any object or collection of objects to which external forces
acts on.
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2. This time draw the forces acting on the apple. From the dot, draw the forces as arrows. Use an upward arrow
to represent the normal force exerted by the table to the apple and a downward arrow to represent the
gravitational force exerted by the earth to the apple. Make sure to be particular with the length and the direction
of the arrows. Label the arrows properly.

Figure 2: An apple resting on a table

(http://www.physicslab.org/Document.aspx?doctype=5)

f) Which exerts the gravitational force (Fg) in figure 2? _______________________________

g) Which exerts the normal force (FN) in figure 2? ___________________________________

h) What is the system to which these forces act on in figure 2? _________________________

i) Aside from the system of interest, are there other systems we can consider from figure 2?

_________________________________________________________________________

If we are going to consider the table as your system of interest, the force diagram will look like the figure on the
right.

The short downward arrow represents the force exerted by the

apple to the table.
The long downward arrow represents the gravitational force exerted
by the earth to the table.
The upward arrow represents the normal force exerted by the ground
to the table.
Notice that the apple exerts force to the table. This is an action
to which the table reacts by exerting a force back on to the apple.

Figure 3: Force diagram of a table with

apple on it

We may not be able to see it by just looking around, but these objects exert force towards each other
as they interact. As force is exerted by an object (action), there will be a reaction force applied back
by other object in contact.
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3. Figure 4 shows the horse and wagon system. If you isolate the horse as system A and wagon as
system B, you can identify these as action-reaction pair. F1 represents the force applied by the horse to the
wagon and F2 represents the force applied by the wagon to the horse. Observe the direction and magnitude of
these two interacting forces.

Figure 4: Horse and wagon system

http://buzzar-brandi.blogspot.com/2017/11/newtons-third-law-of-motion.html

j) What is the action force in figure 4?

______________________________________________________________________________
k) Which system exerted the action force?
______________________________________________________________________________
l) What is the reaction force?
______________________________________________________________________________
m) Which system exerted the reaction force?
______________________________________________________________________________
n) How will you describe the direction of the action-reaction forces in figure 4?
______________________________________________________________________________
o) How will you describe the magnitude of action-reaction forces? (hint: compare the length of the
arrows exerted by the object to another.)
______________________________________________________________________________
p) With all of these, how can you describe what happens between two interacting systems?
______________________________________________________________________________

The state of motion of an object is affected by the forces acting on it. The book is at rest because the net force
(sum of all external forces acting on it) is zero (0). When the net force acting on a system is zero, it means that
the external forces are balanced. This means that the object is either at rest or at constant motion. Forces can
balance each other if they act on the same system. If, however, the forces are acting on two different
systems, they will not cancel each other.

q) Observe the forces in figure 4. Do action-reaction forces act on the same system? _____________
r) Can we say that the action-reaction forces cancel each other? Why?
_______________________________________________________________________________
s) Describe Newton’s third law of motion using all the key points in this activity.
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
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Title: Newton’s Third Law in-Action

Objective: Cite various applications of Newton’s third law of motion.

Materials: Writing materials

Procedure:

1. Illustrations below show different action-reaction pairs. Identify the action and reaction for every pair.

Action-reaction pair Action Reaction

Fist hits the wall Wall hits the fist

Hewitt, Paul G. “Chapter 5 Newton's Third Law of Motion Practice Page.” Essay. In Conceptual Physics: The High School Physics Program. Needham, MA:
Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006.
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2. Read the text “The invention of the air bag.” As you read this text, note some instances where we can
observe action and reaction forces.

Force
Forces and Motion
The invention of the air bag
The inventor of the air bag, John W Hetrick, attributes his invention to an accident that occurred when
he was out a Sunday drive with his wife and young daughter in 1952. Hetrick swung his car into a ditch
in order to avoid a deer, and he and his wife flung their hands up to protect their daughter. While driving
home after the crash, he had the idea of an object coming out of the dashboard to soften a collision and
began to develop sketches of his idea. His invention was further inspired by an accident he witnessed
during the Second World War. While repairing a torpedo, the compressed air inside the weapon was
accidentally released, firing the torpedo’s canvas cover to the ceiling. Hetrick’s original patent for the air
bag used a spring-loaded mass as the trigger, probably would not have worked in practice, and he never
earned any money from his invention. Most contemporary systems use nitrogen generated from the
reaction between sodium azide, potassium nitrate and silicon dioxide in order to fill the airbag rapidly.
The first recorded head-on collision in which both cars deployed airbags occurred in 1990 in Culpeper,
Virginia — both drivers suffered only minor injuries.
References:
D. Sherman, The Rough Road To Air Bags, American Heritage’s Invention and Technology, vol. 10, no. 1, 1995, pp. 48-56.
W. L. Masterton, & C. N. Hurley, Chemistry: Principles and Reactions, Belmont, CA, Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning, 2009, p.
124
A. Hutchinson, Big Ideas: 100 Modern Inventions That Have Transformed Our World, New York, NY, Sterling Publishing Co.,
2009, p.136

https://spark.iop.org/invention-air-bag

a) What are the instances in the text which shows action-reaction forces? (cite at least 3)
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
b) What made Hetrick realize that an object coming out of the dashboard to soften collision is important for
those people who uses cars?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________
c) How do action-reaction apply to the discovery of airbags?
__________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

Remember
 Newton’s Third Law: Law of Interaction states that if body A exerts a force on body B, then
body B will exert a force of equal magnitude on body A, but in the opposite direction. This can
also be simplified as “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

 Action-reaction forces do not cancel each other since they act on two different objects or
system.
 Check Your Understanding 10

Directions: Read and analyze each item. Answer the questions on the space provided.

1. What are the action-reaction pairs in the figure below? (name at least 6)

https://slideplayer.com/slide/4164434/

__________________________________________________________________________________
2. Why do action-reaction forces not cancel each other?
_____________________________________________________________________________

Post Test
Directions: Read the questions and encircle the letter of the best answer.
1. What is the least number of systems that can display action-reaction forces?
A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 D. 4
2. Car A, having a mass of 450 kg, was involved in a collision accident with Car B, which had a mass of 650 kg.
What could be said about the force experienced by car with the higher mass with respect to the lighter car?
A. Both cars experience the same amount of force.
B. The magnitude cannot be determined from this data.
C. Car B experiences a greater magnitude of force than Car A.
D. Car A experiences a greater magnitude of force than Car B.
3. As stated in Newton’s third law of motion, what happens when object A exerts force to object B?
A. Object B gets pushed. C. Object A exerts s reaction force to object B.
B. Object B remains to be at rest. D. Object B exerts a reaction force back to the object A.
4. Which is NOT true about action-reaction forces?
A. They occur in a single system. C. They are equal in magnitude.
B. They are opposite in direction. D. They act on two different interacting systems.
5. A car and a truck collide head-on. The car gets pushed back farther than the truck. Which statement best
explains the incident?
A. The truck exerted greater force than the car.
B. The car exerted greater force than the truck.
C. The action-reaction forces are unequal, which lead to a greater push to the car.
D. The action-reaction forces are equal, but the masses of the objects are different.

Reflection
To sum-up everything that you learned from this module, check the totality of your experience in accomplishing
this module by using the F4 (facts, feelings, findings and future). For the facts, list the concepts that you learned
from this module. Feelings column asks you to share how you felt in the duration that you worked to accomplish
this week’s task. For the findings, write your discoveries and for the future, write how you can use your findings
to understand practical life safety practices (fastening seatbelts, wearing a helmet).

FACTS FEELINGS FINDINGS FUTURE