SOLUTION: A rubber ball rebounds to half the height it drops. If the ball is dropped from a rooftop 18 m above the ground, what is the total distance traveled by the time it hits the ground

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Question 373296: A rubber ball rebounds to half the height it drops. If the ball is dropped from a rooftop 18 m above the ground, what is the total distance traveled by the time it hits the ground the third time?

I appreciate the help, I am stuck on how to solve this. Math has never been my strong point!

Answer by neatmath(302) About Me  (Show Source):
You can put this solution on YOUR website!

Okay, let's go through this exercise.

The ball is dropped from 18 meters.

It bounces up to 9 m, and then hits the ground a second time.

This time it bounces up to 4.5 m and then hits the ground a third time.

So we actually need to add up 5 different distances to get the total.

So for total distance traveled, we should have:

18+9+9+4.5+4.5=45 meters

The ball should have traveled a total distance of 45 meters.

If you draw a picture it should help quite a bit.

I hope this helps!