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Air Resistance
Name: lorraine
Status: student
Age: 16
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 2000-2001
Question:
how does air resistance affect the movement of the
projectile?
how the principles of projectile is used in launching artificial
satellites in outer space?
Replies:
Hi Lorriane:
1.Projectiles have a vertical (up and down) and horizontal (side to side)
component. What that means is that if you could take a snap shot of a
projectile, like a cannon ball that was shot into the air, and look at its
velocity, you would see two parts. You would see the velocity in the 'x'
direction (side to side) and the velocity in the 'y' direction (up and
down). These two components of velocity are independent of each other.
For
example, if I throw a ball straight up into the air, its has a 'y'
velocity,
but its 'x' velocity would be zero. So, air resistance will have an
effect
on the motion of a projectile if it changes either or both of the velocity
components. For example, if your cannon ball has an initial 'x' velocity
of
20 meters per second, but the wind is blowing 10 meters per second against
the cannon ball, the ball will only have a resultant of 10 meters per
second
in the 'x' direction. Basically, the wind slows it down, just as you would
think!
2. As far as projectiles into space, if you understand my explaination
above, you will see that in order for a satellite to leave earth, its
velocity in the 'y' direction must overcome the gravity of earth. In this
case, the earths gravity is like the wind in the problem above, only much
much stronger! I hope this helps
Katie Page
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