Key Ideas:

• Projectile motion is an example of 2-D motion.

• The vertical component of the motion is accelerated by gravity

• The horizontal component of the motion has no acceleration

• The horizontal and vertical components are tied together by the time, so this is good practice with parametric equations.

Textbook Sections: OpenStax College Physics 2e section 3.4

Projectile Motion:

Just about every physics textbook in the world teaches vectors in two dimensions and then — immediately — jumps into projectile motion. There’s a reason for that. It is an easily accessible “case study” of the ideas that we have been looking at, and it is very tangible. We have all thrown a ball at some point, and the motion of that ball is projectile motion. However, as always, there’s a bit going on behind the scenes that we need to look at before we begin.

Simplifying Assumptions: