below are two homework problems i have been stuck on. i guess the professor found it funny to give us material that we haven't touched in class. I am completely stumped on these. Anyway, i dont want the answer just some help finding my way to it

Find the terminal velocity for a 83-kg skydiver. Assume a constant of D=0.25 kg/m. Convert your answer to miles per hour and use mph as units.

(Practice how to properly work this out. Start with a scetch of the situation. Then draw a proper force diagram, aka free-body diagram. Apply Newton's Law and find the answer. Practice how to explain all your steps along the way; what you are doing and why; explain why you are drawing the diagram the way you do. Finally, evaluate your answer.)

Find the constant D for a 70-kg skydiver with open parachute, such that the terminal velocity is equivalent to that of the skydiver jumbing from a height of 1.8 m without a parachute.

So the only reason I can figure out what you're trying to do is to assume that your units are correct (D = kg/m), and then figured out that kg/m * velocity^2 (or m^2/s^2) gets you to kgm/s^2 (which is force in Newtons).

This would make the drag force equal to Dv^2, which in terminal velocity is equivalent to the gravitational force (mg).

Mind you, I have never seen the units kg/m before. It is linear drag density or something like that.



This post was edited by Dontrunaway on Feb 18 2015 03:52am