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The reason why turbine engines work so well all comes down to Newton’s Third Law of Motion: “Every force occurs as one member of an action/reaction pair of forces.” (Knight 177). This means that the force with which the exhaust air is pushed out of the engine is equal to the forward force that the air has on the engine, resulting in forward thrust.

In order to get this thrust, the gas turbine engine utilizes several other areas of physics as well. The equation PV=nRT is vital to the engine process beginning in the compressor, where volume is decreased, leading to an increase in pressure. This allows more mass of air to be pushed into the combustion chamber, leading to a better ignition of the fuel. When the high pressure air is then pushed into the turbine, it is allowed to expand, which turns some of the internal energy of the air into mechanical work for the compressor. This is made possible by the conservation of energy. Conservation of energy is also utilized to increase the velocity of the air at the expense of pressure in the engine’s nozzle. This high velocity air provides the force needed to propel the engine forward.