Question 3.S&C.8: 1. On a cold, rainy day, your car battery is dead, and you m...

1. In this case, the system to be accelerated is the car. If you remain inside and push on the dashboard, the force pair you produce acts and reacts within the system. These forces cancel out, as far as any motion of the car is concerned. To accelerate the car, there must be an interaction between the car and something external— for example, you on the outside pushing against the road.

2. No, a force is not something an object has, like mass; it is part of an interaction between one object and another. A speeding baseball may possess the capability of exerting a force on another object when interaction occurs, but it does not possess force as a thing in itself.