Home › AP Physics 1 › Physics › Two-Dimensional Kinematics and Projectile Motion › Resolving projectile motion into perpendicular d…
Resolving projectile motion into perpendicular directions works because each direction can then be treated as:
AOne-dimensional
BCircular motion
CRotational motion
DRandom motion
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: A. One-dimensional
1. The point of resolving is to reuse machinery already built.
2. The key to analyzing projectile motion is to resolve it into motions along perpendicular directions.
3. The horizontal and vertical components are independent of each other.
4. Each component is therefore a straight-line problem of the kind one-dimensional kinematics already solves.
5. Recombining them gives back the curved path.
_Source: OpenStax College Physics for AP(R) Courses 2e (CC BY 4.0), Ch 3 'Two-Dimensional Kinematics', sections 3.1-3.4_
Related questions
A projectile's horizontal velocity stays constant during flight because:Choosing which direction counts as positive in a projectile problem affects:The head-to-tail method gives the same resultant regardless of the order the vectors are dThe independence of horizontal and vertical motion means a ball dropped and a ball fired hThe two named approaches to vector addition and subtraction are graphical methods and:Subtracting vectors is described as analogous to the subtraction of:If you set up a coordinate system with downwards as positive, the acceleration due to gravBecause gravity acts vertically, the horizontal acceleration of a projectile is: