Question

A football player tosses the ball through the air to a teammate. Could the path of the ball be described by the equation y=0.5x2(squared) + 0.3x + 2?

Answer 1

No, the path of the ball cannot be described by the equation

`\mathbf{y = 0.5x^2 + 0.3x + 2}` because x is negative.

Explanation:

The graph of a quadratic equation can be expressed by the equation:

`\mathbf{y = ax^2+bx+c}`

where;

a, b and c indicates the real numbers and the parabola is illustrated when a ≠ 0

The parabola is said to be a curve from the graph in which any point is equal to the distance from a fixed point and a fixed straight line.

Now; when a football player tosses the ball through the air; the parabolic curve moves through the negative x axis and passes through the positive y axis to the positive x axis.

Therefore; the path of the ball cannot be described by the equation

`\mathbf{y = 0.5x^2 + 0.3x + 2}` because x is negative.