Free Fall question

Question

A basketball player achieves a hang time, the total time of flight, of 0.708 s when dunking the ball.

What vertical height will he attain? The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s2 .

Answer in units of m.

Answer 1

Assumptions: center of mass does not change throughout the flight.

Δy=v_iΔt+.5*gΔt²

Δy=.5*9.8*.354²

Δy=0.61 meters

Explanation: taking advantage of the symmetrical nature of projectile motion, the problem could be seen as an object dropping from a height with an initial velocity of zero and time of flight would be half of the flight time given. This would allow setting initial velocity at zero and using the first equation shown above.