Projectile motion occurs when an object is thrown and no longer influenced by the force that propelled it. Inertia and gravity play a role in the object’s path, which is approximately parabolic. Understanding projectile motion is important in military, sports, and physics. Factors such as initial velocity, mass, and launch angle affect the object’s path.
Projectile motion is a physical phenomenon that occurs when an object is propelled by a force that ceases to exert influence on the object after it is thrown. The laws of physics cause objects to follow a very particular path when thrown this way. A classic example is a soccer ball, which becomes a projectile when kicked by a player.
Most people are familiar with Isaac Newton’s statement that an object in motion tends to stay in motion. This is known as inertia. Inertia plays an important role in projectile motion, because it explains why an object keeps moving without any source of propulsion. There’s also a force at play: gravity. Gravity explains why the soccer ball in the example above returns to Earth, instead of constantly moving through the air.
The path of a projectile is approximately parabolic. When launched, inertia helps it move upward, against gravity, but eventually the pull of gravity becomes too strong and the object begins to drift back to Earth. However, the object has also traveled horizontally, so the object’s path creates an arc. Eventually, the object will hit the Earth and stop and, in the case of the soccer ball, get kicked by another player.
Understanding how projectile motion works is important. Historically, many armies have struggled with the concept, because they didn’t understand how arrows, cannonballs, bullets, and other projectiles moved through the air, and this made it difficult to aim properly. The physics behind this type of movement also plays a role in sports and many other activities, which is why questions involving this concept ask people to use mathematical formulas to determine the path a bullet will take in many physics tests .
The object’s initial velocity, mass, and launch angle all play a role in the path the object will follow; for example, a marble rolling off a table will follow a different path than a marble shot straight up with a small catapult. Most projectile motion problems are set on Earth, which has a familiar gravity, although people can also calculate it for various objects on other planets, as long as the gravity is known. Simple problems also assume that air resistance and the earth’s rotation are unimportant, although in reality they can become problems with certain types of problems.
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