Hmmm. If just dropping to the ground vertically like a stone, would one be able to do large horizontal movements like the shuttle astronauts are seen doing, swimming through their space? Curious to know if skydivers can do these during the free-fall part of their drop.
Also, the relevance of...
To explain weightlessness to my students, I use the analogy of a falling elevator (lift) as folows - if we stand on weighing scales in an elevator and the elevator cable snaps, the scales will show zero since they are falling to the ground at the same acceleration as us, therefore registering no...
The textbooks say that motors and generators are the same structurally, they just differ in what is input (motion / voltage) and what is output (voltage / motion). I have also read that electric trains use this phenomenon for their 'electric braking', by running their motors as generators by...
When I said no further retardation to impose, I meant gravitational retardation. Air resistance and any other resisting forces would certainly slow it down, increasing the force required to overcome these.
Ranjit Konkar
I don't believe that is true. It is taking the full retarding force of gravity into account that the equations of motion predict the 11.2 km/s escape velocity. There is no further retardation to impose after that. The calculation of this figure assumes an object escaping in a direction in full...