SOLUTION: Suppose a ball is thrown straight up at a speed of 50 feet per second. The time in seconds that it takes for the ball to hit the ground can be found by solving the equation 5 + 50t

Question 456241: Suppose a ball is thrown straight up at a speed of 50 feet per second. The time in seconds that it takes for the ball to hit the ground can be found by solving the equation 5 + 50t - 16t^2 = 0. Approximately how long does it take for the ball to hit the ground?
Answer by nerdybill(7384) (Show Source): You can put this solution on YOUR website!
5 + 50t - 16t^2 = 0
0 = 16t^2-50t-5
apply the "quadratic formula" to get:
t = {3.222, -0.097}
we can throw out the negative answer leaving
t = 3.2 seconds
.
details of quadratic to follow:

Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation with variable

Quadratic equation (in our case ) has the following solutons:

For these solutions to exist, the discriminant should not be a negative number.

First, we need to compute the discriminant : .

Discriminant d=2820 is greater than zero. That means that there are two solutions: .

Quadratic expression can be factored:

Again, the answer is: 3.22198975591897, -0.0969897559189692. Here's your graph:

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