Suppose I am in an airplane flying 1000 km/h, I drop an object from 1 meter height, logically this object would not land where I drop it?
How come the displacement of the aircraft has no influence on this?
Best regards
Marco Denis
Answer
The moment you still hold the object, it has a horizontal speed of 1000 km/h, just like your hand, your body and the entire aircraft.
When you let go, it only experiences a force (gravity) in the vertical direction.
There is no force in the horizontal direction and so the body will not be able to accelerate in the horizontal direction, because “force (which is zero) = mass x acceleration”
Given the horizontal acceleration is zero, the velocity is constant. As the object falls, it continues to move horizontally at 1000 km/h. There is no force that changes that horizontal speed.
Answered by
prof.dr. Paul Hellings
Department of Mathematics, Fac. IIW, KU Leuven
Old Market 13 3000 Leuven
https://www.kuleuven.be/
.