Farmers fails physics

Physics falls short for Farmers Insurance ad

I was flipping through my most recent copy of Wired magazine when I noticed this Farmer’s Insurance ad. At first glance, I was happy to see that they were using the metric system until I noticed that middle flight. Wait, the cow went a distance of 185 m/s?

Farmers fails physics

Farmers fails physics

Yes, this is just a silly ad. I should relax and let it slide. Right? Then again, the insurance business is all about numbers, units, and equations.

Speaking of equations, let’s take a look at those numbers again.

A closer look at the numbers

A closer look at the numbers

The cow is a projectile launched at 70 degrees off the horizontal with an initial velocity of 42 m/s.

Oh no. It’s not just a little slip on a label; all the distances are wrong too.

Zip over to the Wolfram Alpha site for the correct answers.

Wolfram Alpha can solve this

Wolfram Alpha can solve this

Looks like I’ll be saving this image for my physics students to investigate. I guess it is back to school for Farmers.

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