Question

After an exhausting battle on the Verrazano Bridge on a hot summer day, Spiderman, and the

Green Goblin takes a break from fighting each other to search for some way to cool

themselves down. Looking at the sparkling body of water directly below them, they decide to

race each other into the water. Spiderman, who is standing at the edge, steps right off the

bridge and drops straight down. The Green Goblin hops on his motorcycle and rides off the

bridge. At the moment he goes off the edge, he has an instantaneous horizontal velocity of 20

m/s. They both leave the bridge at the same instant.

At the same instant that Spiderman and the Goblin jump off the bridge, a woman throws (not drops but throws) a baseball straight downwards at the water. When will the baseball hit the water? Explain why the baseball’s time to reach the water is or is not different from that of the two super-humans.

Answer 1

Spiderman drops straight down and hence has zero initial velocity along the vertical direction.

Goblin goes off the edge horizontally and hence has zero initial velocity along the vertical direction.

So, along the vertical direction, Both Spiderman and Goblin have zero initial velocity. Both experience same acceleration due to gravity. as a result both Spiderman and Goblin takes same amount of time to hit the water.

The baseball has been thrown at some speed in down direction so it takes smaller time to hit the water as compared to time taken by both Spiderman and Goblin. The time is different for baseball since it has some initial speed in down direction.