In 1987, as a Halloween stunt, two skydivers passed a pumpkin back and forth bet
ID: 1657527 • Letter: I
Question
In 1987, as a Halloween stunt, two skydivers passed a pumpkin back and forth between them while they were in free fall just west of Chicago. The stunt was great fun until the last skydiver with the pumpkin opened his parachute. The action caused the pumpkin to be ripped from his hands. Unfortunately, the pumpkin then plummeted about half a kilometer, ripped through a roof of a house, slammed into a kitchen floor, and splattered all over the newly remodeled kitchen. What caused the skydiver to lose control of the pumpkin?
Explanation / Answer
The skydivers and pumpkiin were falling along with each other, i.e. their relative velocity was zero. So at that time it was easy to pass the pumpkin back and faoth. As the skydivers opens the parachute he feels a huge change in velocity. As the pumpkin has much higher velocity than skydivers when parachute opens, due to inertia of motion it was difficult to skydiver to hold pumpkin any longer and it fell down.