not bolted on the floor?Why pushing against a chair that is bolted down different?Please Help THanks
The classic response is action / reaction. The same force you apply to the chair is applied to you, as you are more massive, you would move in one direction slowly and as the chair is less massive, it would move in the other direction more quickly. If you consider both you and the chair as one object, you just spread out, the center of mass of both you and the chair remains unchanged. If the chair is bolted down then you are pushing against the entire space ship which is much more massive than you so you would go off in one direction while the spaceship goes off very very slowly in the other direction. Again the center of mass for you and the spaceship are unchanged, stuff is just more spread out.
It's different because of inertia. The chair that is bolted to the floor has the same inertia as the entire space shuttle, so it takes a lot more force for one unbolted human being to move the entire mass of the space shuttle and all its mass than it does for the body and mass of the astronaut to move in an opposite direction to the force the astronaut applied to the chair. When the chair is not bolted to the shuttle, the AND inertias of the chair and the astronaut's body and the force the astronaut applies to the chair are all proportional. Energy and mass are conserved and obey Newton's three laws of motion.
If it's bolted, you would push yourself away. When it's bolted, you and the chair would float away equally.
Unbolted - you and the chair experience equal but opposite force and you move slowly and the chair (less mass) quickly. If the chair is bolted down it may be considered to be part of the shuttle - so you are pushing on the shuttle - wich receives force and accelerates as before until you strike the wall of the shuttle and the acceleration is reversed
