An object is propelled straight up from ground level with an initial velocity of 48 feet per second. Its height at time t is modeled by , where the height, s(t), is measured in feet and the time, t, is measured in seconds. a. What is the maximum height of the object and when does it occur? b. When does the object hit the ground? c. During what time interval is the height over 32 feet? Please show your work (i. e. don’t just depend on your graphing calculator!!)

Explanation:

For a. its max height and when it occurs. First the max height. That's a y-dimension thing, and in the y-dimension we have this info:

v₀ = 48 ft/s

a = -32 ft/s/s

v = 0 (the max height of an object occurs when the final velocity of the object is 0). Use the following equation for this part of the problem:

v² = v₀² + 2aΔx and filling in:

Δx and

0 = 2300 - 64Δx and

-2300 = -64Δs so

Δx = 36 feet.

Now for the time it takes to get to this max height. Final velocity is still 0 here, but the equation is a different one for this part of the problem. Use:

v = v₀ + at and filling in:

0 = 48 - 32t and

-48 = -32t so

t = 1.5 sec.  That's part a. Onto part b:

The object hits the ground when its displacement, Δx, is 0. Use this equation for this problem:

Δx = v₀t + and filling in:

and

and

0 = 16t(3 - t) so

t = 0 and t = 3.  t = 0 is before the object is propelled, so it makes sense that at 0 seconds, the object was still on the ground, right? Then at 3 seconds, it's back on the ground. (Isn't math just perfectly, beautifully sensible!?) Now onto part c:

We are looking for the time interval when the object is >32 feet. So we use the same equation we just used, but with an inequality instead of an equals sign:

and get everything on one side and factor it again:

and we find that

1 < t < 2 so the time interval is between 1 and 2 seconds that the object is over 32 feet in the air.