Projectile motion with air drag
What you are seeing: three projectiles fired simultaneously at the same speed and angle , subject to different drag laws. The yellow projectile is in vacuum (no drag); the cyan one experiences Stokes drag ; the orange one experiences quadratic drag . All three leave the launcher at the same time but land at different ranges.
Without drag the trajectory is a parabola with range (max at ). Stokes drag is linear and falls off more gently with speed; quadratic drag grows faster at high speed, so it bites harder near launch. Slide the speed and angle to see the asymmetry: at high speeds quadratic drag dominates; at low speeds Stokes drag wins.
v_0 (m/s)20
angle45 deg
speed2
WHAT TO TRY
- Vary each control and watch the rail readouts respond.
- Compare the diagnostic plot against the live scene.