Question

PHYS

A student fly has just learned Newton’s Third Law of Motion. He decided to do a daredevil experiment by colliding head-on with a speeding car. The fly reasons out, “By Newton’s Third Law, the force I apply on the windshield of the car is only equal but opposite to the force of the windshield applied to me; therefore, I will not be harmed”. Of course, the fly was crushed to death! Use Newton’s Third Law to explain what was wrong with the fly’s reasoning

Answer 1

Newton's third law of motion states that an equal and opposite force is applied by the body or action and reaction force is same.

Here, in this situation, the fly collided with the windshield and get crushed because the mass of the fly is considered as little means the mass of fly is negligible than that when we compared the mass of the bus.

The impact of the force for the fly due to windshield is greater than the impact for the windshield due to the fly.

Hence, the fly gets crushed.