A basketball player makes a jump shot.

Question

A basketball player makes a jump shot. The 0.616 kg ball is released at a height of 1.82 m above the floor with a speed of 7.24 m/s. The ball goes through the net 3.10 m above the floor at a speed of 4.02 m/s. What is the work done on the ball by air resistance, a non-conservative force?

Answer 1

Hey Hope,

Set this up as a conservation of energy problem. We are going to compare the total energies at the point of release and at the point of the ball going through the net. The difference between those 2 values will be the "work done on the ball by air resistance".

1. Release
2. The ball has kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy, which you should be able to calculate.
3. If you want to be fancy, you can call the point of release your reference height for calculating potential energy due to gravity, meaning you could say it has 0J of potential energy at this height. Then when you calculate PE at the hoop, you'd use only the difference between the release height and the height of the hoop
4. Ball goes through the net
5. Again, there is kinetic energy and potential energy.
6. Find the difference to solve your problem. You could write an equation like this:
7. PE₁ + KE₁ = PE₂ + KE₂ + W_{air resistance}
8. ^^ 1 is when the ball is released, 2 is when it goes through the net.