Imagine that you are watching a volleyball match and suddenly the ball comes towards you. Due to your reflexes you hit the ball so that you do not get hurt. The ball moves away from you due to the action of your hand on it. But definitely your hands pain due to the impact of the ball. That is, whenever two bodies interact with each other, each exerts a force on the other. The force exerted by one of the two bodies is called the action force while the force exerted by the other is called the reaction force.

In the above example the force exerted by you on the ball is the action force and the force exerted by the ball on your hand is the reaction force.

Action and reaction forces act simultaneously but on different bodies. Let us find out why a rubber ball rebounds when it is thrown on a hard floor. It is due to the action and reaction forces that are acting simultaneously.

The ball exerts a force (action force) on the floor and the floor exerts an equal and opposite force (reaction force) on it. The rubber ball being light rebounds.

Based on such examples of action and reaction forces, Sir Isaac Newton gave the third law of motion “To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction".