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Yes, because that's the Third Law of Newton.
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Whatever the underlying force,
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gravity, spring, anything,
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force on 1 due to 2, and force on 2 due to 1 will cancel,
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and everything I get today,
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the whole lecture is mainly about this one simple result,
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this cancellation.
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Then, this whole thing, I'm going to write as Fe,
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meaning the total external force on this two-body system.
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So, I have this peculiar equation.
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I'm going to rewrite it in a way
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that brings it to the form in which it's most useful.