a falling model

dmdtaz

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Jan 27, 2008
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A falling model Suppose you drop a ball from the top of a building that is 100 feet tall.
a. Construct a mathematical model to estimate how long it takes the ball to reach the ground. Hint an object falling near the surface of the earth in the absence of air friction accelerates downward at the rate of g= 32.2 ft/sec^2
b. use calculus to solve the model and answer the question.
c. After solving the model for your estimate suppose you accually drop the ball and discover it takes 2.6 seconds to reach the ground. What do you conclude from the result.
I am not sure what to do with this problem. I have more like this so if I see one example I can do the rest.
Thanks dawn
 
Well if you know your kinematics:

\(\displaystyle d = v_{0}t + \frac{1}{2} a t^{2}\)

where d is your displacement, v[sub:glykol1h]0[/sub:glykol1h] is your initial velocity, t is the time it takes, and a is your acceleration.

I don't know why you would use calculus if you could just simply plug in the values although I don't know how much kinematics you know.
 
dmdtaz said:
b. use calculus to solve the model and answer the question....

I am not sure what to do with this problem.
Since you're taking differential equations, you've already taken a complete course in calculus, so this should be a piece of cake! Especially since you did problems of this sort back in algebra, too! :wink:

Just use what you learned back in those previous courses. You don't actually need anything from your current class (diff-EQ) to solve this. :D

Eliz.
 
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