Question

The drop that rider's experience on Dr. Doom's Free Fall can be modeled by the quadratic function LaTeX: h\left(t\right)=-9.8t^2-5t+39h ( t ) = − 9.8 t 2 − 5 t + 39 where h is height in meters and t in time in seconds. What is the starting height of the riders?

Answer 1

The starting height of the raiders is 39 meters.

Explanation:

Physically speaking, a free fall motion is an uniformly accelerated motion due to gravity. Mathematically, speaking the equation of motion for the height of an object under free fall is a second order polynomial (quadratic function).

Let
`h(t) = -9.8\cdot t^(2)-5\cdot t + 39` be the height of the riders, in meters, the starting height is the height evaluated at
`t = 0\,s.` Hence, we proceed to the determined the required data by direct evaluation:

`h(0) = -9.8\cdot (0)^(2)-5\cdot (0) +39`

`h(0) = 39`

The starting height of the raiders is 39 meters above the ground.