In dealing with motion of projectile in air, we ignore effect of air resistance on motion. This gives trajectory as a parabola as you have studied. What would the trajectory look like if air resistance is included? Sketch such a trajectory and explain why you have drawn it that way.

Question

In dealing with motion of projectile in air, we ignore effect of air resistance on motion. This gives trajectory as a parabola as you have studied. What would the trajectory look like if air resistance is included? Sketch such a trajectory and explain why you have drawn it that way.

Philoid · Accepted Answer

In the above figure, the dotted line represents the trajectory of projectile with no air resistance and continuous line represents the trajectory with air resistance.

Because of the air resistance, the horizontal velocity of the projectile is decreasing continuously and so is the energy of the particle. This makes the graph fall steeper than the rise.