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Question

According to the Newton’s Third Law of Motion, what happens to a stationary rowing boat when a sailor jumps forward from it?

This question was previously asked in
RRB Group D 2025 Question Paper (18-Aug-2026) (Shift 1)
The correct answer is

The boat moves backward due to an equal and opposite reaction force

Newton’s third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the sailor pushes his feet against the boat to jump forward, he exerts a force on the boat in the forward direction.

The boat, in turn, exerts an equal force on the sailor in the backward direction. Since the water offers relatively little resistance to a stationary boat, the reaction force pushes the boat backward. It cannot stay still (a real force acted on it), it cannot go forward with the sailor (the forces are opposite), and the direction is set by the law, not by random water resistance.

Hence, the answer is The boat moves backward due to an equal and opposite reaction force.

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Important Questions from Laws of Motion

  1. Which of the following is correct?

    I. The mass of an object is a measure of its inertia

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  2. A 20.0 kg block is placed on a smooth horizontal table. A horizontal force of 12.0 Newton is applied to the block. The position of the block at 5.0 sec is

  3. A subway train starts from rest at a station and accelerates at a rate of 3 ms-2 for 10s. It then runs at a constant speed for 20s and decelerates at 5 ms-2 unit it stops at the next station. The distance between the two stations is:

  4. In a desert, a beetle's motion sends fast longitudinal pulses, vL = 150 ms-1, and slower transverse pulses, vS = 50 ms-1, along the sand's surface. The sand scorpion has eight legs; spread roughly in a circle of 5 cm diameter, intercepts the faster longitudinal pulses 4.0 ms earlier than the slower transverse pulse. The pray is located at a distance of:

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