The Physics of Downhill Skiing Essay -- Skiing Physics Essays

The Physics of Downhill Skiing You can hardly believe that the day youve been waiting for has arrived. After all this age of waiting patiently, Mother Nature has finally decided to cooperate by letting it snow. It was a miracle. The ski resorts had finally opened and in just a few minutes youd be off the ski lift and ready to soar to the bottom of the mountain. Even though its your first date on skis, youre sure you wont have any problems. After all, youre a pretty athletic individual, and youve watched skiing on the video during the winter Olympics. Your moment of reflection is put to a halt as your friend slaps you on the chest telling you its time to get off. You contract to leave the chair, but your body quickly makes contact with the cold hard ground. After a long hard day of trying to make it experience the hill you steer home frustrated and ready to sell your new skis. Your skiing partner tries to console you by telling you that skiing is a manifold athletics that involves a lot of physics. The next day you do some research. As you learn more about the physics involved in the sport of skiing, your struggles on the hill are put into prospective. The sport of skiing relies on the physics of Newtons three laws of motion, gloom, and the concepts of potential and kinetic energy.The force that allows the skier to head down the hill is gravity. An inexperienced skier may find that gravity causes them to move down the hill faster than theyd like. What is gravity? We all know that gravity is the force that makes a ball, which has been thrown into the air, fall to the ground. Gravity is the force that the earth exerts on an object. As the skier heads down the hill the earth is pulling the skier towards its cen... ...t the amount of physics involved in downhill skiing. Gravity, energy, and Newtons three Laws of Motion, are all concepts of physics that greatly affect the sport of skiing. If a beginner skier would tamp down the time to examine these c oncepts they may find an explanation to why their first day at the ski hill didnt go as expected. workings CitedKirkpatrick, Larry D., Wheeler, Gerald F. Physics A World View. Forth ed. Fort Worth Harcourt College Publishers, 2001.Lind, David, and Scott P. Sanders. The Physics of Skiing at the Triple Point. New York Springer-Verlag, 1996.Mears, Annie. Physics of Alpine Skiing. 18 may 2002. 23 April 2003. Swinson, Derek B. Physics and Skiing. The Physics Teacher 30 Nov 1992, 30. The Physics Classroom. 21 April 2003.