Question

An American football lineman reasons that it is senseless to try to out-push the opposing player, since no matter how hard he pushes he will experience an equal and opposite force from the other player. Use Newton’s laws and draw a free-body diagram of an appropriate system to explain how he can still out-push the opposition if he is strong enough.

a) Newton's First Law.
b) Newton's Second Law.
c) Newton's Third Law.
d) Law of Conservation of Momentum.

Answer 1

An American football lineman can still out-push the opposition if he is strong enough because of Newton's third law of motion.

Step-by-step explanation:

To explain how an American football lineman can still out-push the opposition, we need to consider Newton's laws of motion. Specifically, Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

When the lineman pushes against the opposing player, the opposing player exerts an equal and opposite force back on the lineman.

However, if the lineman is strong enough, he can still out-push the opposition because the force he exerts on the opposing player is also exerted on himself.

This means that the lineman experiences a greater force in the opposite direction, allowing him to push the opposing player backwards.

A free-body diagram can help illustrate this concept.

The diagram would show the lineman as a system and include arrows representing the forces acting on him, including the force he exerts on the opposing player and the force the opposing player exerts back on him.