Interactive · 2 questions
A firearm is like a sort of projectile used to fire targets.
This is a firearm.
There are forces acting on the firearm when it is flying. Which forces are these?
There is gravity acting on every object in the universe. There is thrust from releasing the firearm from the bow. Also drag, from the air, like if it is a very windy day.
Here's another question.
What if a ball was dropped and another thrown horizontally, from the same point?
Which would hit the ground first?
Surprisingly, both balls would hit the ground at the same moment! All that mattered was how high they started from. It wouldn't make any difference if the bullets had some sideways force.
The purple ball and the green ball in the picture are always at the same level. The green ball just has that sideways force spread out among the different levels it falls in.
If the ball was fired so fast and so powerfully, it could eventually get into a low orbit!
This projectile was fired faster and faster until it got into an orbit around the planet.
This leads to a famous physics problem: Monkey and Hunter.
A hunter plants a projectile in front of a monkey in a tree. The projectile fires at the same time as the monkey releases its grip on the tree. Poor monkey! The bullet hits it in the air.
This is true because the monkey expected the projectile bullet to travel in a straight line and hit the tree branch. What really happened was the gravity pulled down the bullet, making it curve down and end up in the monkey's mouth.