Real-world ballistics: A dropped bucket
Abstract
I discuss an apparently simple ballistics problem: the time it takes an object to fall a small vertical distance near the surface of the Earth. It turns out to be not so simple; I spend a great deal of time on the quantitative assessment of the assumptions involved, especially with regards to the influence of the air. The point is not to solve the problem; indeed I don't even end up solving the problem exactly. I introduce dimensional analysis to perform all of the calculations approximately. The principal theme of the lecture is that real physics can be very different from ``textbook'' physics, since in the real world you aren't ever told what equations are appropriate, or why.
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