Basketball+Dunks

= Basketball Dunk = = = ===Pro basketball players fall at the same rate as they rose into the air, if they don't make contact with anything. What makes the time seem longer is probably because after their bodies strecth to their highest point, they extend their arms upward, giving the illusion that they're still going up. They are also moving toward the goal when they jump, which also affects our perception of time. Here's an example. Imagine firing a bullet from a rifle, directly at a ballon flying in the air 100 yards away. If the wind moves the ballon downward, will you hit it? In fact, the moment the bullet leaves your gun in a horizontal line, it will begin to fall. It will fall with exactly the same acceleration downwards as the ballon. Regardless of how far away the ballon is, when the bullet reaches the area of the ballon, it will have fallen the same distance as the ballon. It will hit it! This seems unlikely, since we usually picture bullets as travelling in a straight line. === === The 'hang time' of a pro basketball player at the net seems longer because he is moving forwards and upwards. It is more diffuclt to be aware of how long it took him to go up, when he is also moving forwards. But if you used a stopwatch and a slow-motion replay, you would find out that the time from when he leaves the floor to when he stops moving upward is exactly equal to the time he takes to fall, and there is no hang time! The instant he stops going up, he starts to fall. But this is hard to see when things happen fast and there is forward movement. ===