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If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site: intermathematics.com for over 2000+ pdf pages of resources for teaching IB maths!

This is a classic puzzle which is discussed in some more detail by the excellent Wired article.  The puzzle is best represented by the picture below.  We have a hunter who whilst in the jungle stumbles across a monkey on a tree branch.  However he knows that the monkey, being clever, will drop from the branch as soon as he hears the shot being fired.  The question is therefore, at what angle should the hunter aim so that he still hits the monkey?

(picture from the Wired article – originally from a UCLA physics textbook)

The surprising conclusion is that counter to what you would expect, you should actually still aim at the monkey on the branch – and in this way your bullet’s trajectory will still hit the monkey as it falls.  You can see a video of this experiment at the top of the page.

You can use tracking software (such as the free software tracker ) to show this working graphically.  Tracker provides a video demo with the falling monkey experiment:

As you can see from the still frame, we have the gun in the bottom left corner, lined up with the origin, the red trace representing the bullet and the blue trace representing the falling monkey.

We can then generate a graph to represent this data.  The red line is the height of the bullet with respect to time.  The faint blue line (with yellow dots) is the height of the monkey with respect to time.  We can see clearly that the red line can be modeled as a quadratic.  The blue line should in theory also be a quadratic (see below):

but in our model, the blue line is so flat as to be better modeled as a linear approximation – which is shown in pink.  Now we can use regression technology to find the equation of both of these lines, to show not only that they do intersect, but also the time of that intersection.

We have the linear approximation as y = -18.5t + 14.5
and the quadratic approximation as y = -56t²+39t +0.1

So the 2 graphs will indeed intersect when -18.5t + 14.6 = -56t²+39t +0.1

which will be around 0.45 seconds after the gun is fired.

(A more humane version, also from Wired – where we can throw the monkey a banana)

Newtonian Mathematics

The next question is can we prove this using some algebra?  Of course!  The key point is that the force of gravity will affect both the bullet and the falling monkey equally (it will not be affected by the different weights of the two – see the previous post here about throwing cannonballs from the Leaning Tower of Pisa).  So even thought the bullet deviates from the straight line path lined up in the gun sights, the distance the bullet deviates will be exactly the same distance that the monkey falls.  So they still collide.  Mathematically we have:

The vertical height of the bullet given by:

y = V₀t – 0.5gt²

Where V₀ is the initial vertical speed, t is the time, g is the gravitational force (9.8)

The vertical height of the monkey is given by:

y = h – 0.5gt²

where h is the initial vertical height of the monkey.

Therefore these will intersect when:

V₀t – 0.5gt² = h – 0.5gt²
V₀t = h
h/V₀ = t

And for any given non-zero value of V₀ we will have a t value – which represents the time of collision.

Well done – you have successfully shot the monkey!

If you like this you might also like:

Throwing cannonballs off the Leaning tower of Pisa – why weight doesn’t affect falling velocity

War Maths – how cannon operators used projectile motion to win wars

Essential Resources for IB Teachers

1) Intermathematics.com

If you are a teacher then please also visit my new site.  This has been designed specifically for teachers of mathematics at international schools.  The content now includes over 2000 pages of pdf content for the entire SL and HL Analysis syllabus and also the SL Applications syllabus.  Some of the content includes:

1. Original pdf worksheets (with full worked solutions) designed to cover all the syllabus topics.  These make great homework sheets or in class worksheets – and are each designed to last between 40 minutes and 1 hour.
2. Original Paper 3 investigations (with full worked solutions) to develop investigative techniques and support both the exploration and the Paper 3 examination.
3. Over 150 pages of Coursework Guides to introduce students to the essentials behind getting an excellent mark on their exploration coursework.
4. A large number of enrichment activities such as treasure hunts, quizzes, investigations, Desmos explorations, Python coding and more – to engage IB learners in the course.

There is also a lot more.  I think this could save teachers 200+ hours of preparation time in delivering an IB maths course – so it should be well worth exploring!

Essential Resources for both IB teachers and IB students

1) Exploration Guides and Paper 3 Resources

I’ve put together a 168 page Super Exploration Guide to talk students and teachers through all aspects of producing an excellent coursework submission.  Students always make the same mistakes when doing their coursework – get the inside track from an IB moderator!  I have also made Paper 3 packs for HL Analysis and also Applications students to help prepare for their Paper 3 exams.  The Exploration Guides can be downloaded here and the Paper 3 Questions can be downloaded here.