Falling skydiver

A skydiver jumps from a plane. How fast is he or she going at any time? There is a fairly simple expression for the drag on a body falling in air (“body” as a generic in the physics sense, not meaning “dead body!”). One can insert it into a simple differential equation that is “straightforward” to solve by separation of variables; along the way, I prove some useful relations. I also show how far off is the prediction of a simpler form often given for its simpler math.

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