Does Newtons 3rd law mean that half of the energy is wasted?

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This may sound dumb to some folks, but lets say I fire a gun. 1000N of force goes into the bullet, and another 1000N of force goes into my body. Even if i strap the gun to the ground, it will just apply 1000N of force to move the earth by a tiny amount. Because of this, does it mean that it isn’t possible to have 2000N of force going to the bullet with the same parameters as before?

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17 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes.

Though it doesn’t actually have to be wasted. Some of the recoil energy can be used for operating reloading mechanisms so you can use more than half the energy.

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