Ed Packel
Volwiler Professor of Mathematics
Lake Forest College, Ilinois
3:30pm Monday December 1st, 2003, in K9509
Projectile Motion with Resistance, Experimental Mathematics, and the Lambert W Function
Abstract
A new closed-form solution to the range formula for projectile motion
with linear resistance will be developed with the help of symbolic
computation and the increasingly applicable Lambert W function. Using a
newly developed limit theorem for a class of inverse functions, the
inverse range problem of finding angles that result in a given
projectile range can also be solved in closed form.
Issues involving "Experimental Mathematics" and the role of computer
algebra systems in doing mathematics will also be discussed.