my person question thread is back in business. Here it is. I'm trying to figure out what the Force is of a 910,000 pound aircraft flying at 570 mph. I know that Force= Mass x Acceleration ...
that's like saying the planes that hit the world towers exerted 0 force.
okay, wait, maybe the acceleration is negative...from 570 mph down to 0. Hmm, okay, I gotta figure that out...
do some reading on net force, and applied force. and, yes, when the plane hits something, you have to assume that there will be an acceleration in the opposite direction from velocity to 0.
I'm not gonna do the math, but thats probably about right. you got the concepts right (after firguring out that when you go from really fast to 0, you are accelerating negatively (decelerating)) and thats half the battle. there's some other stuff involved, such as transfer of momentum.
ok, I did the math and got pretty close to what you got.