Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Projectile motion

Falling

At a given location on the earth and in the absence of air resistance, all objects fall with the same uniform acceleration. Thus, two objects of different sizes and weights, dropped from the same height, will hit the ground at the same time.
Drop

An object is controlled by two independant motions. So an object projected horizontally will reach the ground in the same time as an object dropped vertically. No matter how large the horizontal velocity is, the downward pull of gravity is always the same.


Here are the formulas that describe projectile motion:



Once the object leaves the table, it
experiences a downward acceleration equal
to gravity. Thus the vertical velocity(Vy) is
continually increasing. The horizontal
velocity(Vx) remains constant and is equal to
Vxo.The two vectors Vx and Vy are added
together to get the velocity at each point on
the path.
If an object is pointed at an angle, the motion
is essentially the same except that there is
now an initial vertical velocity(Vyo). Because
of the downward acceleration of gravity, Vy
continually decreases until it reaches its
highest point, at which it begins to fall
downward.

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