🛰️ NEWTON'S CANNONBALL
PAGE 1 OF 5, THE THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
MOUNTAIN CANNON
WHAT IF YOU FIRED HARDER?
Isaac Newton imagined a cannon on a very tall mountain, firing cannonballs sideways. Gravity still pulls every shot toward Earth, so a slow ball arcs down and hits the ground nearby. Fire a little harder, and the ball travels farther before it lands. Newton asked a brilliant question: what if you fire so hard that the ball falls at the same rate Earth curves away beneath it? Then the ball never meets the ground. It keeps falling around the planet forever. That mental picture links everyday falling to the motion of the Moon and modern satellites.
⚡ THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
Newton never built the mountain cannon. He used the idea in his writings to show that orbit is continuous free fall sideways, not a special force that holds things up.
FIRE!
SLOW SHOT
💥 Ball arcs and hits nearby ground
⬇️ Gravity pulls it down the whole way
⛰️ Lands on the mountain's slope
⬇️ Gravity pulls it down the whole way
⛰️ Lands on the mountain's slope
FASTER SHOT
🚀 Same gravity, more sideways speed
🌍 Lands much farther from the cannon
📐 Path still curves toward Earth
🌍 Lands much farther from the cannon
📐 Path still curves toward Earth