Why is acceleration negative in a free fall?

2 answers:

6 0

Technically speaking altitude is measured from the ground up.
Therefore, say you're falling from 1000 metres, that number decreases till it reaches 0. Therefore, you're accelerating but towards the ground i.e. towards 0.

Therefore acceleration is negative because you're travelling at -x metres per second and accelerating at -x metres per second^2

murzikaleks [220]3 years ago

5 0

Only because when most people work with vertical motion, they call the upward direction positive. So falling objects have negative velocity and acceleration. But if you prefer to call the downward direction positive, you have every right to do that. Then the force of gravity on a falling object, as well as its velocity and acceleration, are all positive, and its negative altitude steadily grows until it hits the ground.

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A student walks 50 meters east, 40 meters north, 35 meters east, and then 20 m south. What is the magnitude and direction of the

Nuetrik [128]

Answer: A student walks 50 meters east, 40 meters north, 35 meters east, and then 20 m south. Then the magnitude and direction of the student's total displacement will be 87.32 m along the direction of AD or in east-south direction.

Explanation: To find the correct answer, we need to know about the Displacement of a body in motion.

<h3>What is displacement of a body in motion?</h3>

The displacement is the shortest distance between initial and final positions of a body.
It's a vector quantity, and can positive, negative, or zero.
The magnitude of displacement is less than or equal to the distance travelled.

<h3>How to solve the problem?</h3>

At first, we can draw a diagram showing the motion of the body.
From the diagram, the displacement of the body will be equal to the distance between point A and D.
To solve this, we can use Pythagoras theorem.

$AD=AC+CD\\AC^{2} =50^{2} +11^2\\AC=51.19 m\\Similarly,\\CD^2=35^2+9^2\\CD=36.13 m\\thus, \\AD=51.19+36.13=87.32 m$

Thus, from the above calculations, we can conclude that, the displacement of the body will be equal to 87.32 m along the direction of AD or in east-south direction.

Learn more about the Displacement here:

brainly.com/question/28020108

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