What happens when you throw a ball in a moving train?

When a person throws a ball up in a moving vehicle, say, a train, the ball does come straight back to thrower as though the train were at rest. So if the train moves with a constant velocity, the ball will exactly return to the thrower.

What effect does the force of gravity have on the horizontal velocity of the projectile?

The force of gravity does not affect the horizontal component of motion; a projectile maintains a constant horizontal velocity since there are no horizontal forces acting upon it.

Can something move horizontally and vertically at the same time?

Summary of Projectile Motion – A horizontal glide combines with a vertical plunge to produce a graceful curve. – The downward gravitational acceleration behaves the same as for any falling object. – There is no acceleration in the horizontal direction if air resistance can be ignored.

What happens to the vertical velocity as the ball goes down?

Yet in actuality, gravity causes the cannonball to accelerate downwards at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s. This means that the vertical velocity is changing by 9.8 m/s every second.

Why does gravity only affect the ball’s downward motion?

This means there is zero air resistance force and only the downward gravitational force. This force causes the ball to increase in speed (in the downward direction)—but once the ball is moving, there is now air resistance force pushing up. The ball then falls at a constant speed—this is called terminal velocity.

What happens to the ball when you drop it from a train?

Think about it this way. Before you drop the ball, it is moving along with the train (i.e. it has some horizontal speed). When you drop it, the ball still has this speed, and since an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless you exert a force on it (Newton’s first law), the ball will continue to move at this horizontal speed as it falls.

How fast is the ball moving in relation to the vehicle?

Vehicle is moving 60mph in relation to the ground, ball is moving 60mph away from the observer in relation to the vehicle.

What happens to the ball if air resistance is not present?

If we neglect air resistance, then only the force of gravity will be acting on the ball, and it will accelerate vertically from the point of view of the observer on the train. It will retain its horizontal velocity it had already because it was moving with the train. This is a parabolic path from the point of view of the man on the ground.

Can you tell if a train is accelerating by the ball?

Of course this all assumes that the train doesn’t accelerate during the ball’s fall. If the train accelerates, then the ball will still move as it would have if the train had not accelerated. Thus in this case the ball may land elsewhere than where you aimed it, and an observer can figure out in this case that the train is accelerating.