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| Question 1093647:  How long would it take for a ball dropped from the top of a
 196-foot building to hit the ground?  Round your answer to two decimal places.
 
 Answer by addingup(3677)
      (Show Source): 
You can put this solution on YOUR website! To answer your question, we have to use the formula to approximate the distance in feet s that the ball (or any other object) falls freely from rest in t seconds: s = 16t^2
 Now, you may wonder why 16, why not any other number. It's because the instantaneous acceleration, the acceleration of gravity, is 32 feet per second. The coefficient of the t^2 term is HALF the acceleration. When you get to calculus you'll learn how this works.
 So here we go:
 16t^2 = 196
 t^2 = 196/16
 t^2 = 12.25
 t = sqrt(12.25)
 t = 3.5 seconds
 
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