Outline of the Second Term Paper

Scientific Principle: Newton's Third Law of Motion
"For every action force there is an equal reaction force in the opposite direction"

Three video games that break the principle of action/reaction:

1. Portal - Character's jump boots allow the character to land after falling extreme distances. This is not physically possible because a change in momentum = (force) x (time), and the amount of time it takes for her to stop would not counter the momentum she gains (clip: http://youtu.be/wX9Sc88qreg?t=40s)
2. Half-Life - Gravity gun in the game suspends a lot of the physical laws of reality. However, focusing on action/reaction, when the gun is pushing or pulling a massive object, where does that force come from? It is seemingly conjuring force out of nowhere, particularly for the pull (clip: http://youtu.be/Zam5yw8idDg?t=1m39s) 
3. Skyrim - Rather pronounced how unrealistic it is, and seems more like a glitch, though it is in game! When the giants in the game use a certain attack, it will launch any character hundreds of feet into the air, violating the principle for a few reasons: the giant is hitting the person down, so they would have had to lose a significant amount of energy into the ground before that flight into the air (which means the force would have to me immense), and with that amount of force exerted onto the character, the giant should react accordingly. (clip: http://youtu.be/yp58uykSEmA?t=25s)
4. 
   

Outline:

I. Intro:

Thesis: Some video games violate Newton's Third Law of Motion

II. Body:

Portal: Chell's boots

• The boots allow Chell to fall incredible distances without receiving injury
• According to the equation (change in momentum)=(force)x(time), the fact that she can land with the amount of time she does from the height she does with the weight she has, she could not possibly have such a fast change in momentum.
• If she did have that fast of a change in momentum, the boots may save her ankles, but since they're to only her lower leg and don't have any brace for the rest of her body, her body would break in order to give enough force to account for the stopping in that short a time.

Half Life: Gravity Gun

• The gravity gun is capable of suspending many physical laws, but essentially it is able to pick up objects of virtually any mass and suspend them in the air, as if without gravity, and is also capable of drawing an object in from a significant distance and also propelling the object away at high velocity.
• Not enough of a reaction happening for really any of the gun's effects to take place, even if the gun was capable of generating "weightlessness." To jettison something forward like that, while we do see a small lightning bolt and a tiny recoil of the weapon, it would require some large force to move masses at high speeds.
• If that isn't enough, how can the gun's ability to pull objects to it be explained. It would require some sort of reaction (or action) for the object to be moved towards the gun, but as it is there is no visible force acting on the objects.

Skyrim: Giant's attack

• The giants in the game are capable of doing an attack that swings down into the ground and causes the enemy it strikes to be launched hundreds of feet into the air.
• It would take an immense force to hit something with the mass of a person that high into the air if it were striking upwards, but what it's doing is even more impressive because it's striking the character into the ground and they are then bouncing that high.
• With the amount of force apparently exerted on the character that has been launched into the air, the giant's should react accordingly according to Newtons third law

Conclusion:

Though Newton's third law is broken, it's done so in a way that helps the entertainment factor of the game (whether by making game play smoother or just more entertaining)