Recoil refers to the backward movement of a firearm when it is fired, caused by the equal and opposite reaction force exerted on the gun by the bullet according to Newton’s third law of motion.

Due to the much greater mass of the gun compared to the bullet, the acceleration of the gun is much less than the acceleration of the bullet, even though both experience equal and opposite forces according to Newton’s third law.

When a gun is fired, it exerts a forward force on the bullet. Simultaneously, the bullet exerts an equal and opposite force on the gun, resulting in the recoil of the gun.

Understanding that when a person exerts a force on the road to start walking, the road exerts an equal and opposite force on the person’s feet demonstrates Newton’s third law of motion. The reactive force from the road allows the ...

Although action and reaction forces are always equal in magnitude, they may not produce accelerations of equal magnitudes because each force acts on a different object with potentially different masses. Acceleration depends not only on the force applied but also ...