AP Physics C: Mechanics : Understanding Gravity
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for AP Physics C: Mechanics
All AP Physics C: Mechanics Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Gravity
A block with a mass of 
Round to the nearest whole number.
Set the gravitational potential energy and kinetic energy equal to each other and solve for the height.
Mass cancels.
Isolate the height and plug in our values.
Rounding this gives 
Example Question #1 : Gravity
An object of mass 
To find terminal velocity, set the magnitude of the drag force equal to the magnitude of the force of gravity since when these forces are equal and opposite, the object will stop accelerating:
Solve for
Example Question #1 : Gravity
A ship of mass 
The ship's equation of velocity (found by solving the first-order differential equation) is
Substitute 
Example Question #1 : Understanding Gravity
A spherical asteroid has a hole drilled through the center as diagrammed below:
Refer to the diagram above. An object that is much smaller than the asteroid is released from rest at the surface of the asteroid, at point a. How do the velocity and acceleration of the object compare at point b at the surface, and point a, located at the center of the asteroid?
Because the gravitational force depends only on the mass beneath the object (which is the gravitational version of Gauss's Law for charge), the acceleration steadily decreases as the object falls, and drops to zero at the center. Nevertheless, the velocity keeps increasing as the object falls, it just does so more slowly.
All AP Physics C: Mechanics Resources
