PROJECTILES!

Well, well, well now we come to my personal favorite- Projectile Motion. Trust this is when you will begin to fall for physics at least this is when I absolutely started loving and admiring physics. The ideas used in understanding this phenomenon is amazing. Well this is just another kind of motion but it is 2D motion, that is the particle moves in two directions at the same time and we have to analyze its motion. The path [or trajectory as it is actually called] followed by the object in this kind of motion is curved, and not straight, to be specific it is a downward facing parabola and our task is to analyze this motion to the extent that we can tell its position, velocity, angle with the horizontal/vertical at any given time. Sounds difficult, right? But actually its super easy.

First let us think when we can observe projectile motion in real life. Imagine that you are holding a tennis ball in your hand and now try to throw it as far as you can. What do you do while trying to do this? Well you take the ball and throw it at some angle with the ground such that the ball goes up while it moves forward at the same time. The motion of the ball is exactly what projectile motion is. What you are doing is that basically you are taking the ball and you are projecting it out of your hand. Now analyzing this motion might seem difficult but surprisingly it isn’t difficult at all. Let me tell you something about nature and forces. THE FORCES IN TWO MUTUALLY PERPENDICULAR DIRECTIONS ARE INDEPENDENT OF EACH OTHER. Makes sense right? If you kick a football horizontally it would never go flying up. If you know with what velocity and at what angle you are throwing the ball, you can calculate everything at a given time. Use basic trigonometry and find the components of the velocity along two perpendicular directions and then you are good to use the kinematic equations for 1D motion we derived in a previous blog. Just imagine it to be a combination of two different balls, one being thrown horizontally and the other one vertically at the same time. Well all of this is fine but there must be one factor connecting these two seemingly independent directions otherwise how could this possibly work. The answer is yes there is one and only one factor joining these two motions and that factor is time. Time is the bridge which connects these two independent directions when you write the equations for 1D motion after breaking down the projectile into two everything about them will be exclusive except time. Doesn’t this make you wonder how stunning physics is? It is marvelous and beautiful, I hope I gave you some food for thought.

Now go and explore the internet to know everything else about projectiles. I am not deriving the equations in this blog as I usually do because I want you to try and understand this on your own because then you will truly appreciate its beauty. Thank You for reading.