This explanation makes a lot of sense thanks! When drawing the free body diagram, should I draw just two arrows then? One from the left to the right and one from the right to the left, both with the magnitude of the force calculated above?
If we assign numbers for the sake of clarity, let's say the left block has mass 10 kg, initial velocity 4 m/s, and acceleration 4.5 m/s^2. Let's say the right block has mass 20 kg, initial velocity -4 m/s, and acceleration -4.5 m/s^2. And finally assume the collision lasts .5 seconds.
If they...
I'm trying to understand Newton's third law in the context of collisions. Assume that one body has mass M kg and is traveling in the positive x direction with acceleration A m/s^2. Assume that the second body has mass m kg and is traveling in the negative x direction with acceleration a m/s^2...