Realistic acceleration (in g's) check?

[johnpjust]

Folks - doing some research and just needed a reality check on acceleration - let me know if this makes sense:

If I drop an object, it should take roughly 5 cm (.102 sec) to reach 1 m/s, correct? I'm using the classical physics equations for this (please do a quick verification on this).

Then, if I stop the object after it reaches 1 m/s, and the stopping distance is 1 cm, then I'm getting a NET accelleration of ROUGHLY 5g. Then if that stopping distance decreases to 3 mm it jumps to around 17g. Again, this is a net acceleration.

Just want to verify, I know this is easy, but figured i might as well as post it since I'm rusty at this.

 

[jbriggs444]

Yes, this is correct.

You can derive the relationship based on equating kinetic energy and work. Halve the distance and you double the required force for a fixed kinetic energy. It's a simple inverse proportion.