Standing on the roof of a (42.0+A) m tall building, you throw a ball straight up with an initial speed of (14.5+B) m/s. If the ball misses the building on the way down, how long will it take the ball to land on the ground below? Give your answer in seconds and round the answer to three significant figures. A=14 B=5

hi there!

out of the two, (b) precision would be more reasonable.   however, both a and b could be pretty reasonable.

-awesomerepublic   : )

it was given as a lesson and guide for prayer.

russian is not my first language, so i'm afraid i can't write out an answer in russian, but hopefully you can find a way to do so. here's my best translation of the problem: you're given a plot of a particle's position in one-dimensional space over time, and you're asked to find either the total distance traveled by the particle after 6 seconds had elapsed, or the total displacement of the particle after 6 seconds.

if you want the total distance traveled, you would first need to determine the particle's velocity as a function of time, then integrate that over the 6-second interval. we know the position function is quadratic with roots at 0 and 6, so we have

where is unknown. because the position is parabolic, there is symmetry about the midpoint at , and we know that

so that the position function is

which means the velocity is

then the total distance traveled is

so the total distance traveled is 20 m.

on the other hand, if you want to find displacement: the particle starts at and ends at , so its displacement is 0.