Question

You are climbing in the High Sierra when you suddenly find yourself at the edge of a fog-shrouded cliff. To find the height of this cliff, you drop a rock from the top; 8.00 s later you hear the sound of the rock hitting the ground at the foot of the cliff.(b) Suppose you had ignored the time it takes the sound to reach you. In that case, would you have overestimated or underestimated the height of the cliff? Explain.

Answer 1

Ignoring the time it takes for the sound to travel, you would have underestimated the height of the cliff.

Step-by-step explanation:

When calculating the height of a cliff based on the time it takes for a rock to hit the ground, it is important to consider both the time it takes for the rock to fall and the time it takes for the sound to travel back up. In this case, if you had ignored the time it takes for the sound to reach you, you would have underestimated the height of the cliff. This is because the additional time it takes for the sound to travel back up will increase the total time and therefore increase the height calculation.