Some of the content of this guide was modeled after a guide published by OpenStax and has been adapted for the NWP Learning Commons in March 2022. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 International License.
Projectile motion is the combination of motion in the horizontal (x-axis) and vertical (y-axis) directions. In these problems, it is assumed there is constant acceleration of 0 in the x-axis and 9.81m/s² (g: gravity constant) in the y-axis. The graphic below shows how the velocity in the x-axis remains constant throughout, but the velocity in the y-axis reduces from positive, to zero at the apex of the motion, to negative at the same vertical distance as the original point.
Using the above equations, we can substitute in to calculate the approximate time to reach the apex of the motion, the distance traveled in the x-axis and y-axis, as well as the time to return to the starting vertical height in the descent.
