Should a squirrel whose in danger of being shot drop from the tree when the rifle is fired?

Ok, so I'm preparing for an exam and I'm having trouble with this particular question:


A rifle is aimed directly at a squirrel in a tree. Should the squirrel drop from the tree at the instant the rile is fired or should it remain where it is?Why?


My answer: As I said, I'm a bit stuck here. I wonder if the bullet can reach the squirrel if it drops from the tree. Can someone help me answer this please? Thanks a lot!Should a squirrel whose in danger of being shot drop from the tree when the rifle is fired?
No. It should not!


Because the force of gravity cause the same acceleration on both the squirrel and the bullet that started from the gun.


So the gun will be pointed so that it will reach the squirrel. However, by the time it reaches the squirrel, it will be closer to the ground by (1/2*g*t^2), where 'g' is the acceleration under gravity, and 't' is the time it takes to reach the squirrel.


If the squirrel drops, IT WILL ALSO FALL BY EXACTLY the same amount, being in exact position to take the bullet.


So the squirrel is better off if it does not drop.





This sounds weird. In practice, it does not really matter, because , owing to the extreme speed of the bullet, 't' is a very small value. So whether the squirrel falls or not, it is in danger of taking the bullet at some point of it's body or the other.





Hope this helped.


Cheersfor yhour exam!Should a squirrel whose in danger of being shot drop from the tree when the rifle is fired?
We are not given enough information to answer this question.





It depends on whether or not the rifle sight has been calibrated to take range into consideration.





If the shooter is taking distance into consideration, then the answer is yes.





If the initial velocity of the bullet is headed straight at the squirrel


AND


the shot is fired horizontally rather than at an incline


THEN


the answer is no due to the fact that the bullet and squirrel will fall at the same rate of g = -9.8 m/s^2.





If the rifle is shot at an incline then the acceleration due to gravity must first stop the bullet's ascent before it starts to fall.





The horizontal distance to the rifle and the speed of the bullet also need to be taken into consideration. If it is a very fast bullet fired from short range, the squirrel may just end up getting shot in the head instead of the heart.





By the time the squirrel hears the shot, the bullet will already have arrived at the tree. A rifle's muzzle velocity is faster than 331 m/s (the approximate speed of sound in air.)
No it should not drop from the tree. The hunters intent was to kill it, once it sees it drop it will go over to it, realize its alive and kill it for sure. The squirrels best chance at surviving is to try and escape the hunter.





The physics answer would probably have to do with how sound resonates from the tree and how there would be a delay or something but I like my answer more :)
if the squirrel is in a straight line from the barrel of the gun then it shouldnt drop because the bullet wont travel in a straight path..it is a projectile and hence will have a trajectory or a curved path so it will miss the rodent.
It won't help the squirrel. The bullet drops just as fast in air as the squirrel. So if the gun is aimed at the squirrel, the bullet will hit it falling.
For a hypothetical question you have to assume that the hunter has done this before and knows the trajectory of his bullet.





Therefore you can assume that the hunter would adjust his aim to make up for the effects of gravity.





Under these circumstances it makes absolutely no sense for people to say that gravity would pull the bullet down into the falling squirrel because the hypothetical hunter would have made the adjustments for that.





This is also assuming that the squirrel could even start to drop once he heard the shot fired. It most likely wouldn't even have time to react.





The question is stupid.


Tell your teacher I said so and show him my arguement lol.