Final answer:
Knowing your firearm's range is essential for accurate aiming and safety, as it is affected by factors like gravity, muzzle velocity, and air resistance. Adjusting gun sights compensates for gravity, but only at specific ranges, and understanding projectile motion aids in accurate shooting.
Step-by-step explanation:
Knowing your firearm's range is critical because it allows for accurate targeting and ensures safety. In the context of physics and the horizontal motion of projectiles, it's important to understand that gun sights are often adjusted to aim high to counteract the effect of gravity. This adjustment makes a firearm accurate at a specified range only. For example, if a gun is sighted to hit targets 100.0 m away and the bullet's muzzle velocity is 275 m/s, it would hit lower when aimed directly at a target 150.0 m away due to gravity. A larger muzzle velocity would lessen the drop due to gravity but does not eliminate it, and adding air resistance into the equation would generally decrease the range.
Understanding the impact of these factors provides guidance for both safety and successful targeting. Whether for historical applications like aiming cannons or for sports like archery and football, the principles governing projectile motion dictate that knowing the range is essential.