Whenever I'm feeling stressed or just need some fresh air at night I always go to the fountain. It's only about 30 feet from my front door and is always lit up with cool colors. I don't normally think about physics when I watch the fountain but the fountain has everything to do with physics. The water has an initial velocity, which slows down as it rises because of the constant downward pull of gravity of -9.8 m/s^2. The water stops momentarily at the top, then increases speed as it falls back down. If I were to draw a motion map for this experiment the arrows would be long at first, until the water slows to a stop at the top which means the arrows would become smaller in length. Then as the water fell, the arrows would become longer until the water hit the earth again.
-Matthew Zazzarino
What a great example. That's a lovely area -- I didn't know about it until a couple weeks ago I was biking by. I was shocked to find a peaceful public place in NYC, without too many people.
ReplyDeleteThe water makes a perfect projectile. Here, you can really see the symmetry of something going up and falling back down. What would happen if there was no gravity? This fountain is beautiful because the water falls back down.