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1.4 How Fast Does a Penny Fall from the Empire State Building?

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Last updated over 2 years ago
20 questions
Note from the author:
Lesson Details
Old Lesson Referenced
Experience
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Formalize
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A penny is dropped from the top of the Empire State Building, from a height of 1,250 feet. The height of the penny, in feet, t seconds after it is dropped is given by the function H(t)=1250-16t^2.
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Question 1
1.
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Question 2
2.
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Question 3
3.
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Question 4
4.
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Question 5
5.
Question 6
6.

Find the exact time t when the penny reaches the ground.

Question 7
7.

Find the average rate of change in the penny’s height during the total length of its drop.

Question 8
8.

Determine how many feet the penny fell during each two second interval.
What do you notice?

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Question 9
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Question 10
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Question 11
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Question 12
12.
Question 13
13.

Is the penny speeding up, slowing down, or falling at a constant speed? How do you know?

Question 14
14.

Graph y=H(t).

Question 15
15.

Is the graph of H(t) concave up or concave down? What does this mean in the context of the problem?

Question 16
16.

Here's the chart from earlier.


What do you notice about the rate of change of these average rate of changes?

Question 17
17.

How do those differences compare to the linear function from earlier?
What does that tell us about this function?

Traveling back in time for a moment...

Last year you had a lesson called Finite Differences...

Question 18
18.

Match the function name to the table of values.

Draggable itemarrow_right_altCorresponding Item
Linear
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Quadratic
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Cubic
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Exponential
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Question 19
19.

When are finding differences useful? How do we need to be careful?

Question 20
20.

What can concavity tell us about our average rate of change?

Quadratic functions have a constant second difference, meaning the change over each interval grows or declines linearly.