Newton's Laws - Mission NL3 Detailed Help


Bronco Brown the skydiver pulls the chord of his parachute. The forces acting upon Bronco and his parachute are shown in the diagram at the right. From this diagram, one might infer ...


 
Newton's First Law of Motion:
An object at rest will stay at rest; an object in motion will stay in motion with the same speed and direction, unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.


 
Forces, when unbalanced, cause objects to accelerate. And the direction of the acceleration is the same as the direction of the extra force. Just because an object experiences more upward force than downward force does not mean the object is moving up. It is the direction of acceleration (not the direction of motion) that is related to the direction of the unbalanced or net force. If there is more upward force than downward force, then the object could be moving down and slowing down (or moving up and speeding up).
 
Use this information and what you know about the motion of skydivers (they are usually falling downward from high airplanes) and the direction of an air resistance force (see links in Hot Link section if necessary) to answer this question correctly.


 
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Direction of Acceleration:
If an object is slowing down, then the direction of its acceleration is opposite the direction that the object is moving. A rightward moving object that is slowing down has a leftward acceleration. And a leftward moving object that is slowing down has a rightward acceleration.


 

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