Question

Can we apply Newton’s third law to the gravitational force? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

Hint: Newton’s third law is universal law as long as classical mechanics is true so it does not matter which type of force we consider whether its gravitational, or electromagnetic newton’s third law can always be applied.

Complete step by step answer:
Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction it does not matter which type of force so, we can definitely apply newton’s third law of motion in gravitational force for example,
If a man is standing on the surface of the earth they will apply force mg on the man directed towards the centre of the earth and the man will also apply force of same magnitude of mg on the earth directed away from the centre of the earth. Although we are not able to observe these forces or feel them because earth is very massive and a small force like mg does not have any significant impact on the earth.

Note:
Gravitation force tries to pull the object due to virtue of its mass if we would not be able to apply newton’s third law of motion on gravitational force then there will be some objects which gets pulled only towards a certain mass and there will be some objects which will pull only some other objects it means we will have to types of mass in nature one which pulls other objects and other one which gets pulled itself but we know from our daily experience that it is not true so by using this analogy we can say that we can apply newton's third law of motion to the gravitational force.