Projectile Motion

            In the video below, we can see an example of projectile motion; the motion of the tennis ball when it leaves the hands of Joie (left) and the distance it traveled it hit the ground. The shape of the ball as it falls toward the ground is called parabolic motion. Now although you cant really see how high Joie is off the ground, she is standing on a tall chair that makes her about 6 feet off the ground and she threw the ball with an initial speed of 0.2 meters per second. How would we use math to determine where on the ground the ball landed?

Well, by using physics we can determine where the ball landed without actually measuring how far away from Joie it landed. But before we know far away it landed we have to figure out how long it was in the air. By using the d=1/2at^2 formula we can determine the time, then we would go on to use the d=vt formula to find the distance and it is as simple as that!