# Direction of Motion Question!! A steady wind is blowing with a speed of 36km/hour. from clouds moving horizontally with the wind, heavy raindrops fall to the ground 200m below. find the time taken for a drop to reach the ground

This is a weird question because it might cause conflict conceptually with students. However, the horizontal velocity does not affect the vertical velocity in either case.

The physics of falling objects, neglecting drag, suggests that the object will take the same amount of time to fall regardless of mass. The...

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This is a weird question because it might cause conflict conceptually with students. However, the horizontal velocity does not affect the vertical velocity in either case.

The physics of falling objects, neglecting drag, suggests that the object will take the same amount of time to fall regardless of mass. The reality is that raindrops are subject to drag and reach a terminal velocity rather quickly (within 1 sec or so). That problem seems a bit advanced for high school, since the solution requires programming or lots of iterative steps.

Neglecting air resistance, the rain drop, or any object, will be pulled to the Earth in approximately constant acceleration due to gravity. The time derived from the following would be the minimum time it would take for an object to fall 200 m, regardless of horizontal velocity.

\Deltay = 1/2g*t^2 + v_(yi)t

Where g = 9.8m/s^2 , v_(yi) = 0 m/s and ∆y=200 m

Thus, the above equation becomes

t=sqrt((2\Deltay)/g): tgt0

t=sqrt((2(200\text(m)))/(9.8\text(m/s^2)))\rArr t=6.39 \text(s)

The wind speed of 10 m/s horizontally only affects where it will land (63.9 m horizontally from where it started)

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