SOLUTION: The demon drop ride at Cedar Point takes riders to the top of a tower and drops them 60 feet at speeds reaching 80 feet per second. A function that models this ride is h=-16t^2+64

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Question 850593: The demon drop ride at Cedar Point takes riders to the top of a tower and drops them 60 feet at speeds reaching 80 feet per second. A function that models this ride is h=-16t^2+64t-60 where h is the height in feet and t is the time in seconds About how many seconds does it take for riders to drop from 60 feet to 0 feet?
Answer by Alan3354(69443) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!
The demon drop ride at Cedar Point takes riders to the top of a tower and drops them 60 feet at speeds reaching 80 feet per second. A function that models this ride is h=-16t^2+64t-60 where h is the height in feet and t is the time in seconds About how many seconds does it take for riders to drop from 60 feet to 0 feet?
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I don't think h=-16t^2+64t-60 is correct
h(0) = -60 feet
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h=-16t^2+64t-60 = 0
-4t^2 + 16t - 15 = 0
Solved by pluggable solver: SOLVE quadratic equation (work shown, graph etc)
Quadratic equation ax%5E2%2Bbx%2Bc=0 (in our case -4x%5E2%2B16x%2B-60+=+0) has the following solutons:

x%5B12%5D+=+%28b%2B-sqrt%28+b%5E2-4ac+%29%29%2F2%5Ca

For these solutions to exist, the discriminant b%5E2-4ac should not be a negative number.

First, we need to compute the discriminant b%5E2-4ac: b%5E2-4ac=%2816%29%5E2-4%2A-4%2A-60=-704.

The discriminant -704 is less than zero. That means that there are no solutions among real numbers.

If you are a student of advanced school algebra and are aware about imaginary numbers, read on.


In the field of imaginary numbers, the square root of -704 is + or - sqrt%28+704%29+=+26.5329983228432.

The solution is , or
Here's your graph:
graph%28+500%2C+500%2C+-10%2C+10%2C+-20%2C+20%2C+-4%2Ax%5E2%2B16%2Ax%2B-60+%29

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No real number solutions.