Math 326, Jan 29 - If Tom Can Do It, So Can We - Part 1
In the movie Mission Impossible III, there is a scene where the character Ethan Hunt wishes to break into a skyscraper through the roof.  He decides to swing over from a neighboring building.  Some quick and dirty physics calculations are necessary to get the distances right.  Let's see how the numbers should have come out.

Ethan is swinging from a tall building (226 m) to a shorter building (162 m).  The distance between them is 47.55 m.  Let's build a model which estimates the distance his swing takes him, as a function of where along the tall building's roof he jumps.

We will construct our model in two parts. First, the free fall portion until the cable tautens and Ethan begins his swing. We need to know how fast Ethan is falling at that point. Some geometry will tell us how far he falls before the cable is tight. A copy of our projectile model can tell us his speed, time and how far he has fallen in detail. We use the Excel function LOOKUP to tell us when he reaches the appropriate distance.
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