another scheme to catch the roadrunner has failed

Question

a safe falls from rest from the top of a 36.4 m high cliff toward wiley coyote, who is standing at the base. wiley first notices the safe after it has fallen 10.5 m. how long does he have to get out of the way? the acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s 2 . answer in units of s.

Answer 1

For this problem, you need to find out how long it takes to fall 10.5 m and how long it takes to fall 36.4 m. The difference between these two times is how long Wiley has to get out of the way.

You can use the kinematic equation x = x0 + v0 * t + 1/2 * a * t^2 to solve for the times. For both situations, the starting position (x0 = 0) and starting velocity (v0 = 0) are zero.

So for the time it takes to fall 10.5 m (x = 10.5m), acceleration due to gravity (a = 9.8 m/s2), use x = 1/2 * a * t^2 to solve for t.

Then, for the time it takes to fall 36.4 m (x = 36.4m), acceleration due to gravity (a = 9.8 m/s2), use x = 1/2 * a * t^2 to solve for t.

The difference is the answer you are looking for.