Please help me.

Question

A spy in a speed boat is being chased down a river by government officials in a faster craft. Just as the officials’ boat pulls up next to the spy’s boat, both boats reach the edge of a 4.6 m waterfall. The spy’s speed is 16 m/s and the officials’ speed is 27 m/s. How far apart will the two vessels be when they land below the waterfall? The acceleration of gravity is 9.81 m/s 2 . Answer in units of m.

Answer 1

Here are the steps to answering the question. Both boats take the same amount of time to reach bottom.

t = √(2h/g)

Plug in the given height and g, and get t in seconds.

Horizontal travel of spy:

x₁ = 16t

Horizontal travel of government official:

x₂ = 27t

Plug in the result for t and get x₁ and x₂ in meters. The separation distance at the bottom will be

Δx = x₂ - x₁

You have everything you need now; just plug in the numbers.