Question

A bag of sand dropped by a would-be assassin from the roof of a building just misses Tough Tony, a gangster 2-m tall. The missile traverses the height of Tough Tony in 0.19 s, landing with a thud at his feet. How high was the building? Ignore friction.

Answer 1

First you want to find the velocity the bag of sand was traveling at the top of Tony's head. You can do this from the equation\[D=1/2*a*t^2+v_o*t\] D will be Tony's height, a will be the accelerationg due to gravity (g), and t is the time it takes (.19 s). Once you have solved for the velocity then you can find the distance the bag has fallen from the equation \[v^2=2*a*D\]The total height of the building will be this D plus the 2 m for Tony's height.