An object falls from the Transco Tower in Houston and takes 15 seconds to reach the ground.What is its acceleration in m/s at the 2nd second?

Answer 1

Hey Shelby

Any object in free-fall will have the same acceleration. a = g = 9.8m/s² for its whole fall. I think there may be a mistake in your question though here, since acceleration has units m/s², but speed and velocity use m/s. So I'll take a guess that you mean speed. An acceleration of 9.8m/s² means that, for every second something is falling, it will add 9.8 m/s to its downward velocity. This means that, if something is dropped with v_i = 0 m/s, after 1 second it will be going 9.8m/s down, after 2 seconds it will be going 19.6 m/s, after 3 seconds it will be going 29.4 m/s, etc.

1. The object will keep getting faster like this until it reaches the ground
2. This idea, written mathematically, is expressed with v_f = v_i + at
3. So if the object fell for the full 15 seconds, it would reach a speed of v_f = 15*9.8 = 147 m/s