3 ms·
When standing on Earth we experience a frame of reference that is accelerating upwards, causing objects in free-fall to move along parabolas, as seen in the acc
by rsp1984 6y ago
When standing on Earth we experience a frame of reference that is accelerating upwards, causing objects in free-fall to move along parabolas, as seen in the accelerating frame of reference on the left.
I'm trying to understand what is meant by this. When I drop an item on the floor it goes there in a straight line, not a parabola. Same if I drop something from a helicopter. Obviously I'm missing something here. Can someone with more insight ELI5 this to me please?
- meditative 6y agoit will look like a parabola (or ellipsis if you read elsewhere in this thread) if you add another dimension to your graph of the balls position. That could be a physical dimension, such as throwing a ball to your friend across the room and plotting x vs y. Or even plotting the height of the ball against time. https://imgur.com/a/ccBDZf6 https://imgur.com/a/ccBDZf6 consider the x-axis of this image the distance between you and your friend, or time.