Chapter 6, Problem 51A

Why does a cat that falls from a 50-story building hit the safety net with no more speed than if it fell from the 20th story?

To determine

To explain: The reason due to which the speed of cat is same when it falls from the $50$ -story building and $20$ -story building.

Explanation of Solution

Introduction:

Terminal velocity is the maximum speed attained by falling object in air or fluid.

When body falls some height then its speed increases due to gravitational force and as the velocity of the falling object increase the resistance force applied by the air also increases and its direction is opposite to that of gravitational force. After some time, the magnitude of gravitational force will become equal to the sir resistance force and it then the net force acting on object will become equal to zero. After that, the falling object will move downward with constant velocity and it is called as terminal velocity of an object.

When cat falls from $50$ story building then it has same terminal velocity as $20$ -story building. When the speed of cat become equal to terminal velocity then after its velocity does not change.

Therefore, cat hits the safety net with same velocity in both the cases.