Why do skydivers have a terminal velocity?

People and things keep doing the same thing until a force makes them change according to Newton.

When a skydiver jumps out of a plane they have zero velocity downwards but the force of gravity is pulling them downwards back to Earth. This force, acting on the mass of the skydiver causes them to accelerate downwards at 9.81m/s^2. The skydiver will accelerate downards and get faster and faster but a second force, wind resistance, will get bigger and bigger the faster they go and will act to slow them down. This opposes the force of gravity. At some point the force of wind resistance slowing the skydiver down will be as large as the force of gravity pulling the skydiver down to Earth. Here there is no net force on the skydiver and it is known as equilibirum. The skydiver is at their terminal velocity because there is no net force causing them to speed up or slow down - until they open their parachute.

PF

Related Physics A Level answers

All answers ▸

In still air an aircraft flies at 200 m/s . The aircraft is heading due north in still air when it flies into a steady wind of 50 m/s blowing from the west. Calculate the magnitude and direction of the resultant velocity?


Why are values of gravitational potential negative?


Uranium -238 has a half life of 4.5 billion years. How long will it take a 2g sample of U-238 to contain just 0.4g of U-238?


A Uranium-(238,92) nucleus decays into a Thorium-234 nucleus by the emission of an alpha-particle. Given Thorium has a chemical symbol Th build a nuclear equation.