Real Scary Kinematics

Students often tell me that they find kinematics intimidating and I usually tell them "No lah... you just havent understood the graphs only. Once you figure out the Speed-Time and Distance-Time graph, it will be a piece of cake". On my recent trip to Australia, I finally realised that I was so wrong! So very wrong!

Feeling stupidly adventurous, my fiancee and I signed ourselves up for a sky-diving experience. Before the jump, I even acted all manly and assured her using my logic as an experienced math tutor, "Dont worry, once we reach terminal velocity the acceleration becomes zero. It will probably feel just like sitting on an airplane.." All these are true. Except I forgot to account for the initial part where the acceleration was 10 m/s^2...

The moment I jumped off, I felt that my heart was in my throat (literally). The first 5 seconds felt so uncomfortable that I almost wanted to cry (Refer to the very humiliating photo of me and the suave trainer behind me)

Learning kinematics in math can seem like an easy task. But when it comes to truely experiencing it, it is a million times scarier!