The English Galileo and His Vision of Projectile Motion under Air Resistance

This article presents a detailed discussion of the shape of the trajectory traced by a projectile under the forces of gravity and air resistance. In particular, our results confirm the insight of the English scientist Thomas Harriot into the motion of a projectile before the development of Newtonian...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Robert Kantrowitz, Michael M. Neumann
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Hindawi Limited 2020-01-01
Series:International Journal of Mathematics and Mathematical Sciences
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2020/9695053
Description
Summary:This article presents a detailed discussion of the shape of the trajectory traced by a projectile under the forces of gravity and air resistance. In particular, our results confirm the insight of the English scientist Thomas Harriot into the motion of a projectile before the development of Newtonian classical mechanics. Our approach is based on the fact that the flight path of a resisted projectile is implemented by a strictly concave function for which the derivative is also strictly concave.
ISSN:0161-1712
1687-0425