A pencil falls off of a 1.4 meter desk with a horizontal velocity of 2.5 m/s. How long was the pencil in the air?

Answer 1

This is a bit of a trick question. The pencil falls to the ground according to the free-fall equation----without regard to the horizontal velocity.

Free-fall equation: d = 1/2 * a * t² , where d is distance and a is the acceleration of gravity (9.8 m/sec² )

You are given d = 1.4 meter, so you can now solve for t.