Falling Body Experiment

2013-04-13

In Jr. High science class, Karl and Erik had a physics problem in which a sailboat is moving at a constant velocity and a bowling ball is dropped from the mast (air resistance is negligible). The question was where the ball would land. The science teacher said the ball would fall straight down and land behind the boat since the boat was moving forward. However, according to Newton’s 1st law, a ball dropped from the mast of a moving sailboat would fall at the base of the mast. So they created this experiment with a ball falling off a moving Lego train to prove her wrong. The ball carries the forward motion.