cannonball
Speech parts
1. cannonball - Noun
2. cannonball - Verb
Meaning
a solid projectile that in former times was fired from a cannon
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Examples
After a brief pause, Marlborough’s equerry, Colonel Bringfield (or Bingfield), led up another of the Duke’s spare horses; but while assisting him onto his mount, the unfortunate Bringfield was hit by an errant cannonball that sheared off his head.
As an object moves in the direction in which the force accelerates it, its potential energy decreases: the gravitational potential energy of a cannonball at the top of a hill is greater than at the base of the hill.
As the firing velocity is increased, the cannonball hits the ground farther (B) away from the cannon, because while the ball is still falling towards the ground, the ground is increasingly curving away from it (see first point, above).
Most famously, he was one of the breathless stars in the smash-hit "The Cannonball Run" (1981) with Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett.
As an illustration of an orbit around a planet, the Newton's cannonball model may prove useful (see image below).
Given the radius R of the turntable in that animation, the rate of angular rotation ω, and the speed of the cannonball (assumed constant) v, the correct angle θ to aim so as to hit the target at the edge of the turntable can be calculated.