Solutions to the Problem of Impact in the 17th and 18th Centuries and Teaching Newton's Third Law Today

The similarity between the ideas of young people today and those of early scientists suggests that a study of historical change might be a fruitful source of information for improving the teaching of scientific concepts. This paper examines the use of Newton's third law in helping to understand impact phenomena in the 17th and 18th centuries with a view to gaining ideas to help in teaching Newton's third law. Implications relate to the elaboration of pupils' ideas along the lines of the early scientific understanding, the use of bifilar pendulums in demonstrating impact phenomena, the need for care in differentiating distinct concepts from one another and labelling them appropriately, and the value of a detailed examination of the stages of collisions as they take place. © 1998 Kluwer Academic Publishers.