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+5
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avatar+60 

You toss a ball straight up in the air, it goes up, comes down, and you catch it. If it took 3.5 s from when you threw it to when you caught it, how high did it go?

 

There is no air resistance, and acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s.

 

I need to know the steps to solve this problem, so that I'll know how to solve similar problems in the future.

Any help is apreciated, thanks!

 Sep 19, 2016

Best Answer 

 #2
avatar+36915 
+5

it goes up in 1/2 of the total time....it comes down in the other half of the time.

1/2 of the time is 1.75 secs

vf=vi+at  to find  vi    (velocity initial)  vf= 0 (because it stops and begins to fall back down)

then use

Use   xf=xi + vt + 1/2 at^2    to find xf (the final height)   with xi = initial height = 0

 

 

vf=0 = vi + (-9.8)( 1.75)   yields vi = 17.15 m/s

 

xf = xi + 17.5(1.75) + 1/2(-9.8)(1.75)^2

xf= 0 + 30.625 - 15.006=  15.619 m

 Sep 19, 2016
 #1
avatar+223 
+5

So there are 5 different values that could be used to solve kinematic problems like this one.

 

In this case, there is:

1) initial velocity (v0) - we are not provided with this value

2) final velocity (vf) - we are not provided with this value

3) acceleration (a) - this is provided in the problem as -9.8 m/s

4) time (t) - this is 3.5 seconds

5) delta x (in other words, the displacement) - we are not provided with this value

 

The kinematic equation we will be using is:

delta x = v0t + (1/2)at2

 

If we plug in the values we know, we cannot solve the equation for delta x since there will still be two variables. So we need to find what the initial velocity is by using this equation:

 

vf = v0 + at

 

But in order to find the initial velocity, we need to find the final velocity, which we also don't know. But, we do know that the velocity is 0 at the height of the toss, and we also know that at the height of the toss, half the time has elapsed (half of 3.5 is 1.75). So we end up with.

 

0 = v0 + (-9.8 m/s2)(1.75 s) ----> 0 = v0 + -17.15 m/s 

 

Then we isolate the v0 on the left side of the equation.

 

v0 = 17.15 m/s

 

Now we can plug this into the equation. (Remember to plug in the time as half of the given time)

 

delta x = v0t + (1/2)at----> delta x = (17.15 m/s)(1.75 s) + (1/2)(-9.8 m/s2)(1.75 s)

 

Simplify the equation to get:

 

delta x = 15 m

 

The ball reaches a height of 15 meters.

 Sep 19, 2016
edited by Skgr136  Sep 19, 2016
 #3
avatar+60 
0

How do you know for certain that the ball took half of the total time to reach it's maximum height?

Zectico  Sep 19, 2016
 #4
avatar+223 
+5

You know this because the ball starts and ends in the same position.

 

If you throw anything up with a certain velocity, when that object reaches it's peak, it will always take the same amount of time to come down (disregarding air resistance and wind and such).

Skgr136  Sep 19, 2016
 #2
avatar+36915 
+5
Best Answer

it goes up in 1/2 of the total time....it comes down in the other half of the time.

1/2 of the time is 1.75 secs

vf=vi+at  to find  vi    (velocity initial)  vf= 0 (because it stops and begins to fall back down)

then use

Use   xf=xi + vt + 1/2 at^2    to find xf (the final height)   with xi = initial height = 0

 

 

vf=0 = vi + (-9.8)( 1.75)   yields vi = 17.15 m/s

 

xf = xi + 17.5(1.75) + 1/2(-9.8)(1.75)^2

xf= 0 + 30.625 - 15.006=  15.619 m

ElectricPavlov Sep 19, 2016
 #5
avatar+36915 
0

Tha will always be the case when you neglect air friction and there are no other forces besides gravity acting on the object.

 Sep 19, 2016

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