Question

A monkey in a perch 20m high in a tree drops coconut above the head of a zoo keeper as he runs with a speed of 1.5m/s beneath the tree how far behind him in meters does the coconut hit the ground? please help me

Answer 1

Seeing this problem, the correct approach would be to notice that the zookeeper runs at a constant velocity. So, for our final step, we will use the equation D=V(initial)t. We have the initial velocity as 1.5m/s, and we are solving for distance. We will need time.

To find time, we will use the falling of the coconut using the equation ⌂y=½at².
⌂y=-20m (change in y of the coconut, assuming that the ground is the "x-axis")
a= ±10 or ±9.8, depending on the acceleration of gravity you are told to use by your instructor. In this case, we will use -10 for simplicity. Now let's plug in.

-20 = ½(-10)t²
-40=-10t²
4=t²
t=2

Therefore, it takes two seconds for the cocunut to hit the ground (and two seconds for the zookeeper to run, because these actions are happening simultaneously).

Now that we have time, let's go back to the first equation.

D=V(initial)t
D=(1.5)2
D=3

Therefore, the zookeeper had run a total of 3m.