Question

A fireman is sliding down a fire pole. As he speeds up, he tightens his grip on the pole, thus increasing the vertical frictional force that the poleexerts on the fireman. When this frictionalforce on his hands equals his weight, what happens tothe fireman

Answer 1

Answer:

The fireman will continue to descend, but with a constant speed.

Explanation:

In kinetic friction (which is the case discussed here) since the fireman is already in motion because of a certain force, once the frictional force matches the normal force, the fireman will stop accelerating and continue moving at a constant rate with the original speed he had. We will need a force greater than the normal force acting on the fireman to cause a deceleration.

We need to understand the difference between static friction and kinetic friction.

Static friction occurs in objects that are stationary, while kinetic friction occurs in objects that are already in motion.  

In static friction, when the frictional force matches the weight or normal force of the object, the object remains stationary.

While in kinetic friction, when the frictional force matches the normal force, the object will stop accelerating. This is the case of the fireman sliding down the pole as discussed above.