Real-Life Math
Stunt work often involves a lot of falling. Falling involves gravity.
You've
been hired to handle the falls for the latest Benjamin Kint movie. Someone
else is doing the stunt work for the mutant killer whale-droid fight scenes,
so all you have to worry about are the falls.
There's a mock-up
of an airplane wing in the studio. For the next scene, you have to jump off
the wing and land on an airbag 24 meters below. You have to know exactly how
far out you are going to land so that the technicians can place the bag properly.
Many
stunt workers figure this out just by looking at the setup and
relying on their experience, but you decide to work out the math.
You
are 25 meters up. The stunt coordinator working on this movie uses the metric
system of measurement. That's OK -- you're adaptable. When you jump,
you will have a forward velocity of 3 meters per second. Gravity pulls you
down with an acceleration of 9.8 meters per second squared.
How far
out from the wing will the bag have to be and how fast will you be going when
you land? To do this, you'll have to figure out how long it will take
for you to fall to the ground.
When you have the answer, you'd
better convert it into imperial.
Remember: 1 foot = 0.3 meters
Don't
worry, there are a few formulas for this stuff:
G is for gravity at 9.8 m per second
squared
T is for the time it takes to hit the ground, in seconds
D
is for distance to the ground
V is for velocity in m/sec
T = square
root of (2 x D / G)
V = G x T