Why are objects that fall near earth’s surface rarely in free fall?

Physics

1 answer:

Sloan [31]3 years ago

3 0

Answer:

Because of the presence of air resistance

Explanation:

When an object is in free fall, ideally there is only one force acting on it:

- The force of gravity, W = mg, that pushes the object downward (m= mass of the object, g = acceleration of gravity)

However, this is true only in absence of air (so, in a vacuum). When air is present, it exerts a frictional force on the object (called air resistance) with upward direction (opposite to the motion of free fall) and whose magnitude is proportional to the speed of the object.

Therefore, it turns out that as the object falls, its speed increases, and therefore the air resistance acting against it increases too; as a result, the at some point the air resistance becomes equal (in magnitude) to the force of gravity: when this happens, the net acceleration of the object becomes zero, and so the speed of the object does not increase anymore. This speed reached by the object is called terminal velocity.

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A ball traveling at a speed ν0 rolls off a desk and lands at a horizontal distance x0 away from the desk, as shown in the figure

klasskru [66]

Answer:

$3x_0$

Explanation:

The horizontal distance covered by the ball in the falling is only determined by its horizontal motion - in fact, it is given by

$d=v_x t$

where

$v_x$ is the horizontal velocity

t is the time of flight

The time of flight, instead, is only determined by the vertical motion of the ball: however, in this problem the vertical velocity is not changed (it is zero in both cases), so the time of flight remains the same.

In the first situation, the horizontal distance covered is

$d=v_0 t = x_0$