Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

The_Real_RM t1_j31abjy wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in How fast would a body fall to earth if there was no atmosphere to stop it from accelerating past a terminal velocity? by straubzilla

No, that's not true... If you couple the object to a mechanism that extracts energy while keeping the speed under terminal velocity, then you may recover more energy from the potential energy than this limit you're imposing. For example airplanes (coasting) convert potential energy into kinetic energy by purposefully staying below terminal velocity

Here I'm only counting "useful" energy. But you're ignoring the potential energy converted to air heating and turbulence along the way when the object is at terminal velocity

1

goosebattle t1_j31asxk wrote

You're 100% right. I forgot that it wasn't a closed system. I'll sit in the corner with my dunce cap on for a while.

1