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Why heavy snowballs are better

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blog-0721237001390783346.gifEver wonder why heavy snowballs fly so much further than light ones? The answer is pretty simple. First lets assume that we have two snowballs that are the same size and shape but one is twice as heavy as the other. Also we know that each will leave are hand with the same velocity since our hand can only move so fast regardless of the weight in it and the weight of a normal sized snowball will not slow it down at all.

To figure it out start by drawing a force body diagram for each snowball. blogentry-930-0-64148200-1390782820_thum

The forces of gravity and drag act on each snowball. Note that the force of drag is equal for each snowball since they are traveling at the same velocity. Therefore using F=ma which we will rearrange into a=F/m we can see that the force of drag (which is the only force resisting forward motion) will produce a greater acceleration on the lighter object and therefore slow it down faster.

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