Question

A ball is dropped from a rooftop 60m high.
How long is the ball in the air?

Answer 1

Answer: 3.49 s

Explanation:

We can solve this problem with the following equation of motion:

$y=y_{o}+V_{o}t-\frac{1}{2}gt^{2}$ (1)

Where:

$y=0 m$ is the final height of the ball

$y_{o}=60 m$ is the initial height of the ball

$V_{o}=0 m/s$ is the initial velocity (the ball was dropped)

$g=9.8 m/s^{2}$ is the acceleratio due gravity

$t$ is the time

Isolating $t$:

$t=\sqrt{\frac{2 y_{o}}{g}}$ (2)

$t=\sqrt{\frac{2 (60 m)}{9.8 m/s^{2}}}$ (3)

Finally we find the time the ball is in the air:

$t=3.49 s$ (4)