A collision at a speed of 120 km/h, does that correspond to a fall from the 3rd floor of an apartment, the 8th or the 19th?

Asker: David, 31 years old

Answer

That of course depends on how many meters a floor is in vertical direction. But the speed of a falling object, in the absence of air resistance, is very simple

v = gt

and the distance traveled is x = 0.5 gt2

If you combine the two by eliminating time you get:

v = square root ( 2 gx )

Now suppose that one floor is 3 meters, and you fall from the 8th floor, then you fall over a distance x = 24 m. With the above formula, and g = 9.81 m/s2, your speed below is therefore equal to 21.7 m/s and that is 78 km/h

From the 19th floor that becomes 33.4 m/s and that is 120.4 km/h

A collision at a speed of 120 km/h, does that correspond to a fall from the 3rd floor of an apartment, the 8th or the 19th?

Answered by

prof.dr. Paul Hellings

Department of Mathematics, Fac. IIW, KU Leuven

Catholic University of Leuven
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/

.

Recent Articles

Related Stories