Question

Assertion: The terms action and reaction in the third law of motion stand for simultaneous mutual forces between a pair of bodies.
Reason: In this context action always precede or cause a reaction
(a) Both assertion and reason are correct and the reason is the correct explanation for assertion
(b) Both assertion and reason are correct but the reason is not the correct explanation for assertion
(c) The assertion is correct but the reason is incorrect
(d) Both assertion and reason are incorrect

Answer 1

Hint: Both the assertion and reaction statements must be analyzed separately to determine whether they are individually right or wrong. Then the reaction statement must be analyzed to determine whether or not it is the correct explanation for the assertion statement. This question can be solved by considering the understanding of the third law of Newton’s motion that states that every force applied to a body exerts an equal and opposite force to the body that applied the force.

Complete step-by-step solution:
So Newton’s law of motion states that for every force (action) there is an equal and opposite force (reaction).
Let’s consider two objects A and B.
According to the third law if the object applies a force on object B then there is definitely an equal and opposite force exerted by object B on object A.
The assertion statement states that” The terms action and reaction in the third law of motion stand for simultaneous mutual forces between a pair of bodies”.
From the third law stated above, we can determine that the assertion statement is correct.
Now let’s check the reason statement.
The reason statement states that “In this context action always precede or cause a reaction”
However, from Newton’s third law we know that action and reaction take place simultaneously. The reaction does not precede the reaction rather it happens simultaneously. Hence we can determine that the reason stated is wrong.
Option c is the correct answer.

Note: There are three laws of Newton’s motion. In this question, only the third law was mentioned. From the English meaning of action and reaction, it is possible to think that reaction precedes action. However, according to the third law, the action force and reaction force between two bodies takes place simultaneously and not one after the other.