Question

Moments after making the dreaded decision to jump out the door of the airplane, a skydiver's 89.5-kg body experiences 130 N of air resistance. The magnitude of the skydiver's downward acceleration at this instant in time is ______ m/s^2. Use the approximation g ≈ 10 m/s^2.

Answer 1

Given:

The mass of the skydiver is,

$m=89.5\text{ kg}$

The air resistance is,

$R=130\text{ N}$

To find:

The downward acceleration of the skydiver

Explanation:

The resultant downward force is,

$\begin{gathered} F_{net}=mg-R \\ =89.5\times10-130 \\ =765\text{ N} \end{gathered}$

The downward acceleration is,

$\begin{gathered} a=\frac{F_{net}}{m} \\ =\frac{765}{89.5} \\ =8.55\text{ m/s}^2 \end{gathered}$

Hence, the downward acceleration is,

$8.55\text{ m/s}^2$