Projectile Motion Simulation, With or Without Air Resistance

The simulation is on Page 2. Its features and controls are explained on Page 1.

You can view the motion of a ball performing projectile motion. While the ball is performing its motion, two shadow balls on the x and y axes indicate how the ball moves simultaneously in the x and y directions.

You can also observe the following:

• the ball's velocity vector (in purple; always displayed)
• the x and y components of the ball's velocity (in blue; click Show Components); these components are also printed out in a data entry field
• the ball's acceleration vector (in red; click Show Acceleration)
• the ball's trajectory (in black; click Show Trace).

You have the following controls available:

• you can set the initial position of the ball by dragging it
• you can set the initial velocity of the ball by either dragging the tip of the velocity vector or by typing different values in the velocity data fields and then hitting RETURN
• you can change the ball's mass
• you can either run the ball's motion continuously or can view it in discrete time steps, with steps whose size you can vary
• you can change the ball's air resistance constant C and thus vary the amount of air resistance affecting the ball (air resistance affects the ball in such a manner that the ball's acceleration is equal to a = g - (C/m)v².