Cannonball Motion

#$&*

course PHY 121

6/19 7:30This is making me think about the up and down motion of the other problems that I was having trouble with. Does the fact that this goes at an angle and not straight up and down make it different?

@&

The up and down motion acts just like that of any rising and falling object.

The horizontal motion is at constant velocity.

The initial velocity, being at an angle, has an vertical component and a horizontal component.

*@

My finger --held either way-- seems to speed up as the cannon ball leaves the cannon but

slows down as it goes over the arc at the top. Then it seems to speed up again as it

heads toward the ground.

I think that the acceleration vector would start out not too big, not too small, but

would get smaller as it goes up. The point where the cannon ball starts to slow down is

when the acceleration vector would actually point backward. As the ball comes up and

over the arc, it would start to get larger, pointing in a positive direction, and would

continue to grow until the cannon ball landed.

The velocity vector would always point in the direction that the ball is going, I think.

The arrow would get smaller as the ball went up over the top of the arc and then get

larger as the ball picked up speed.