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

Step-by-step explanation:

The resultant downward force is,

`\begin{gathered} F_(net)=mg-R \\ =89.5*10-130 \\ =765\text{ N} \end{gathered}`

The downward acceleration is,

`\begin{gathered} a=(F_(net))/(m) \\ =(765)/(89.5) \\ =8.55\text{ m/s}^2 \end{gathered}`

Hence, the downward acceleration is,

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