Defying the Forces by Meredith Meyer

Meredith Meyer

Contrived

"Defying the Forces"

 

I took this picture of my friend Mac last summer doing a gainer off of a trampoline and into a pool. Here he demonstrates Newton’s Laws of Motion. A gainer is when you jump forward and then do a back-flip so that you are counter-acting your forward momentum. Mac jumps forward so that his body is moving in that direction and then bends his back to create torque in the opposite direction. According to Newton’s second law, his acceleration is equal to the amount of force he used to push him off of the trampoline divided by his mass. He applies Newton’s first law to this acrobatic move when he begins to rotate backwards. Newton’s first law explains that an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. In this case, Mac is the outside force as uses his muscles to rotate himself backwards.

Done