Question

There is a ball of fresh fruit at the top of a small cliff that is 45 m high. The fresh fruit baskets mass is 10kg's. Identify the energy (PE or KE) and calculate the it.

Answer 1

Given,

The mass of the fruit basket, m=10 kg

The height of the cliff, h=45 m

Kinetic energy is the energy possessed by an object due to its motion. Kinetic energy is directly proportional to the square of the velocity of the object.

Potential energy is the energy possessed by an object due to its position. The gravitational potential energy is directly proportional to the height at which the object is situated.

As the basket is at rest, its velocity is zero and hence it does not have kinetic energy.

Thus the energy possessed by the fruit basket is the potential energy.

The potential energy is given by,

`E_P=\text{mgh}`

Where g is the acceleration due to gravity.

On substituting the known values,

`\begin{gathered} E_P=10*9.8*45 \\ =4410\text{ J} \end{gathered}`

The potential energy of the fruit basket is 4410 J