Question: Terminal Velocity of a Falling Particle
Sunday, 28 of October , 2007 at 1:53 pm
Last week I picked up a new Classical Mechanics (Kibble, Berkshire) textbook. I seem to have misplaced my old 3rd year Classical Mechanics textbook, so I wanted a replacement. As a repercussion for the next while I will be solving Classical Mechanics problems. I will save my “fancier” Quantum Mechanics and Relativistic problems for a later date. However, just because General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have superseded Classical Mechanics, it doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant. Classical Mechanics is accurate over a huge domain. It only seems to break down when dealing with the very fast and the very small. Considering that I’m not THAT small and I’m definitely not THAT fast (and I’m guessing you aren’t either), this area of physics has huge practical implications.
Question: A particle falling under gravity is subjected to a retarding force proportional to its velocity. Find its position as a function of time if it starts from rest and show that it will eventually reach a terminal velocity.
Last week I picked up a new Classical Mechanics (Kibble, Berkshire) textbook. I seem to have misplaced my old 3rd year Classical Mechanics textbook, so I wanted a replacement. As a repercussion for the next while I will be solving Classical Mechanics problems. I will save my “fancier” Quantum Mechanics and Relativistic problems for a later date. However, just because General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics have superseded Classical Mechanics, it doesn’t mean that it is irrelevant. Classical Mechanics is accurate over a huge domain. It only seems to break down when dealing with the very fast and the very small. Considering that I’m not THAT small and I’m definitely not THAT fast (and I’m guessing you aren’t either), this area of physics has huge practical implications.
Question: A particle falling under gravity is subjected to a retarding force proportional to its velocity. Find its position as a function of time if it starts from rest and show that it will eventually reach a terminal velocity.
Category: Classical Mechanics, Questions
No comments yet.