Question

Diving boards and platforms offer a nearly ideal opportunity in which to experience the various laws of motion. When you jump off the high diving board, you are a falling object and, if you can keep your presence of mind as you fall, you will be demonstrating laws of physics. Imagine yourself diving off a platform 10 m above the water below.

a. If you walk very slowly off the platform, so that you fall directly downward, roughly how long will it take for you to reach the water?

b. You are part of a bad synchronized diving team with a friend. She walks slowly off the platform and you jump to give yourself a modest initial upward velocity. Who will reach the water first?

c. You change partners and now you leave the platform simultaneously with this new partner. Except he walks slowly off the platform, while you run off the platform. What direction is your initial velocity? Who will reach the water first?

d. If you walk very slowly off the platform, so that you fall directly downward, roughly how long will it take for you to reach the water if you were to fall off a 20 meter board?

e. How high would the board need to be for a 175 pound man to reach terminal velocity by the time he hit the water? Why would this be a problem?

Answer 1