This question may seem odd, but I can\'t think of anything better. So I\'ll go s

Question

This question may seem odd, but I can't think of anything better. So I'll go straight to the point.

Let's say there's a projectile in air going east, shot at a certain angle, with a certain speed. Then there's the wind blowing, for let's say 5 meters per second in the same direction as the projectile.

So how will the wind affect the projectile? Will it accelerate for 5 meters per second every second it lasts in the air, or will the speed just increase by 5 meters per second all through out? And what if the wind goes exactly the opposite direction? Will it have a negative effect? Should I also take into consideration the drag the object makes, the mass, the terminal velocity, or if there are other things I've missed?

I don't mind if you give formulas. It would also help. But I just wanted to know, in simple terms because I'm not really that inclined with terms used in physics, the effects of a blowing wind to a projectile motion.

Thanks in advance and sorry if I made some errors or misunderstanding with this post or if I used the wrong tags. Feel free to edit it.

Thanks again,

Explanation / Answer

The drag on the projectile is determined by it's speed relative to the air around it. At high speeds air resistance goes as roughly the square of the air speed so it varies quite quickly with velocity.

So if there is no wind the drag is proportional to the square of the projectile velocity.

If there is a 5 m/s wind in the direction of travel the drag is proportional to (v?5)2 so it's lower and the projectile travels farther.

If there is a 5 m/s wind against the direction of travel the drag is proportional to (v+5)2 so it's higher and the projectile travels a smaller distance.

Response to comment: there's nothing terribly complicated about the basic idea of air resistance. If you've ever ridden a bicycle you'll know it's a lot easier to cycle with the wind behind you than it is to cycle into the wind. The problem is that at high speeds the air motion is turbulent, and the turbulence makes it impossible to calculate the air resistance exactly. At the risk of going off on a tangent, the air motion is described by the Navier-Stokes equations and for turbulent motion these are extremely difficult to solve even using a supercomputer. In fact there is a prize of a million dollars for anyone who works out a way to solve the Navier Stokes equations.

Since it's impossible to calculate the air resistance exactly physicists have come up with approximate formulas by doing experiments i.e. measure the air resistance as a function of speed. You could do exactly the same thing by riding your bicycle at different speeds.

By doing the experiments, and including some basic physical concepts physicists have come up with the equation for the air resistance that Pygmalion mentioned:

FD=12?v2CdA

This equation is useful for plugging into computers so we can calculate air resistance, but you have to remember that it's only approximate.

Calculating trajectories including air resistance can generally only be done using numerical methods because there are no analytical solutions. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trajectory_of_a_projectile#Trajectory_of_a_projectile_with_air_resistance for some info on this

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