Approximating the linearly impeded projectile by a tilted idealized one

摘要

At the introductory level, projectile motion is usually considered under the assumption of the absence of air resistance.Even the simplest case of linear drag might be beyond the students, as it requires some familiarity with differential equations.This leaves many students wondering about the effect of air resistance on the motion and the way it can be accounted for.In this paper, we propose to approximate the linearly impeded projectile, under appropriate circumstances, by an idealized one moving in a uniform force field tilted with respect to the vertical.This provides a reasonably good first approximation to the effects of air resistance on shallow trajectories and is accessible to most students with very little calculus.