Why is There Acceleration Despite Newton's Third Law of Motion?

[AllenHe]

Homework Statement

The law states that "Whenever one body exerts a force on another, the second exerts an equal and opposite force on first." But then, why is there acceleration?

Homework Equations

The Attempt at a Solution

If there will be force responding to the first one with equal magnitude, then there won't be any net force.Then why is there acceleration?

 

[grzz]

One must keep in mind that the two forces mentioned in Newton's 3rd law act on two different bodies.

 

[AllenHe]

but, for example. When I push a wall, I will exert a force on the wall, and the wall will exert a force on me.
In another case, when I am pushing a person with 100N, and that person also pushes me with 100N, in opposite direction, then none of us will move. How do you explain that?

 

[grzz]

Consider a person being pushed by me by 100N.
To find whether he will accelerate or not one has to see if there are other forces acting thus contributing to increase or decrease the effect of the !00N that I am applying.
That is to find HIS acceleration one is interested in the forces acting ON HIM and not on me.

 

[AllenHe]

Oh, so what you are saying is that it's other forces which make the person accelerate, right?

 

[grzz]

What I said was that to find the acceleration on a certain mass, one has to find the forces acting on THAT mass. That is what Newton's 2nd law says.