As students begin their physics education, they are taught that projectiles describe parabolic paths in Earth's gravitational field, a teaching that dates back centuries. However, this is fundamentally incorrect under the laws of physics.
The reality of motion under gravity reveals that objects thrown on Earth actually trace elliptical orbits, similar to the Moon's orbit around the Earth, not parabolas.
When modeling the gravitational effects near Earth's surface, two major simplifying assumptions create the illusion of parabolic paths, but the truth involves complex dynamics that introduce deviations from these idealized trajectories.
These deviations from the expected parabolic motion are tiny and often overlooked in everyday scenarios, yet they are significant when examined through precise measurements.
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