Thread: Physics! Motion

If you are travelling on top of a train travelling at 70 miles an hour and you leap vertically, would you land back on the same exact spot ? Your input would be appreciated! Picard

Not really since wind resistance would "blow you backwards" with respect to the train.
In a vacuum: yes you would.

I've been trying to find a video that shows a similar thing, but uses a ball fired from the smokestack of a toy train: the ball is fired directly upwards and, despite the forward motion of the train, lands directly back in the smokestack.
But I've had no luck... maybe it's too old hat now. It was "the in thing" when I was younger and learning basic physics.

By leaping vertically, in the reference frame of the train, you will have a horizontal component of velocity in the reference frame of the ground. Therefore your trajectory will trace a parabola in the reference frame of the ground.