Physics

Projectile motion: MegaWoosh

January 27th, 2010

Check out the video below:

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The stunt is performed by a guy who claims to have invented a zero-friction material. If he’s right, all of the jumper’s gravitational potential energy at the top of the slope is turned into the kinetic energy of his motion at the end of the ramp. Make some assumptions and try to calculate the velocity vector of the jumper at the end of the ramp – compare your findings with the gravitational potential energy available and decide if it is at least theoretically possible to perform such a cunning stunt. If so, how much higher should the start point be, above the take-off point?

Categories: Higher Physics | Tags: fake, Fermi, friction, Higher Physics, Kinematics, projectile, Vectors | 2 Comments

Man, boat, brick

December 17th, 2009

I set a little Fermi Problem for students yesterday – with the promise of a prize for the best written argument which answers these questions.

I’ll be judging the entries tonight and deciding on prizes in time for the last day of term. I might even publish the best entries here, but meanwhile, you can read an earlier version of this exercise (which was a slightly different problem) here and my solution to it is here (click to see it full size):

Categories: Advanced Higher Physics, Higher Physics, Standard Grade Physics | Tags: boat, brick, Fermi, Physics, problem | 2 Comments