Question

A parachutists speed during a free fall reaches 70 meters per second. What is the speed in feet per second? At this speed, how many feet will the parachutist fall during 10 seconds of free fall? In your computations, assume that 1 meter is equal to 3.3 feet. Do not round your answers.

Answer 1

$speed:\text{ 231}\frac{ft}{s}$$Distance\text{ fallen in 10 seconds: 2310 ft}$

Explanation

to solve this we need to know the equivalence, in this case it is

$1\text{ m=3.3 ft}$

then, we can make a equivalent fraction, this fraction needs to have the unit to convert in the denominator, for this problem the unit to convert is the meter, so

$\begin{gathered} \frac{3.3\text{ ft}}{1\text{ m}}\Rightarrow equivalent\text{ fraction} \\ note\text{ that } \\ \frac{3.3\text{ft}}{1\text{m}}=1,\text{ so the amount is not changed} \end{gathered}$

hence

Step 1

convert from yards per second into ft per second, to do that, just multiply by the equivalent fraction

so

$\begin{gathered} 70\frac{m}{s} \\ 70\frac{m}{s}*\frac{3.3ft}{1\text{ m}}=231\frac{ft}{s} \end{gathered}$

so, the speed is

$speed:\text{ 231}\frac{ft}{s}$

Step 2

now, to find the distance we need to mutltiply the speed for the time,so

$distance=\text{ speed *time}$

replace

$\begin{gathered} distance=231\frac{ft}{s}*10\text{ s} \\ distance=2310\text{ ft} \end{gathered}$

so

$Distance\text{ fallen in 10 seconds: 2310 ft}$

I hope this helps you