I wish you could help Following the legendary battle at the fortress of Hornburg
ID: 3342382 • Letter: I
Question
I wish you could help
Following the legendary battle at the fortress of Hornburg, the wizard Gandalf managed to lay his hands on some of the "blasting-fire" that was used to destroy a section of the fortress wall during the battle. Gandalf, a man of magic and science quickly discovered that igniting this "blasting-fire" in a cylinder that was sealed at one end and open at the other created a directed explosion. Furthermore, if some object were placed between the opening to the cylinder and the "blasting-fire", said object would be thrown from the cylinder at a great force in the direction the opening was pointed. Naturally Gandalf thought of many different types of objects to be thrown but he settled on a fully armored Hobbit. To Gandalf, all else paled in comparison to the havoc that such a thing could bring on the enemy forces. The tactical advantages were endless! However, Gandalf was concerned for the safety of Hobbits and wanted some numbers crunched before he launched a Hobbit. So, after firing several sandbags (of approximate weight and size) from his cannon, which he dubbed the "Halfling Hurler +12", he came up with the following formula to model the approximate height (in feet) of the flying Hobbit over a given time t in seconds: h (t) = (55 ) t - 16t2 + 3 Approaching his friend (Place name here) , Gandalf asked for an approximation on the vertical velocity of the hobbit when it hits the ground. Hint: This will require a little review on algebra to first identify at what time, t, the Hobbit hits the ground. Try to approximate the velocity using the numerical method. What challenges do you run into? Which method is better for solving this problem? Explain.Explanation / Answer
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