Kate, a bungee jumper, wants to jump off the edge of a bridge that spans a river below. Kate has a mass m, and the surface of th
e bridge is a height h above the water. The bungee cord, which has length L when unstretched, will first straighten and then stretch as Kate falls. Assume the following: The bungee cord behaves as an ideal spring once it begins to stretch, with spring constant k. Kate doesn't actually jump but simply steps off the edge of the bridge and falls straight downward. Kate's height is negligible compared to the length of the bungee cord. Hence, she can be treated as a point particle. Use g for the magnitude of the acceleration due to gravity.
Point motion will eventually stops due to action of g exactly perpendicular...
Explanation:
If ignoring the air resistance, the magnitude of gravitational acceleration is already strong enough to stops the acceleration. As we know that, the spring constant of a bungee spring cord will be F = -k/x, where x is the stretched length and k is the spring constant of bungee cord. If F = ma = w = mg, the g = -m k/x. Now we can clearly see that the value of g remains constant due to the fluctuating length of the cord as the motion progresses back and forth in SHM say from x1 to x2 and x2 to x1.
