(a) According to Newton’s third law of motion: Whenever one body exerts a force on another body, the second body exerts an equal and opposite force on the first body. In other words, to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Two examples to illustrate this law- When a man jumps out from a boat, the boat moves backwards. This is due to the fact that to step out of the boat, the man presses the boat with his foot in the backward direction. The push of the man on the boat is action. The boat exerts an equal force in the forward direction and since the boat is not fixed and is floating, it moves backwards due to the action force exerted by the man. Gunman gets a jerk on firing a bullet from his gun. This is because when a bullet is fired from a gun, the force sending the bullet forward is equal to the force sending the gun backwards but due to high mass of the gun, it moves only a little distance backwards giving a jerk to the gunman.
(b) When a fireman directs a powerful stream of water on a fire, the hose pipe tends to go backward due to the reaction force of the water rushing through it in the forward direction at a great speed.
