Projectile Motion – Perpendicular Horizontal Velocities in a Projectile

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Two balls A and B are both thrown with horizontal initial velocities of 6 m/s and 8 m/s from the edge of a vertical cliff. Their initial velocities are perpendicular and the points where they hit the ground are 120 meters apart. Find the height of the cliff.

The answer given is height of cliff is 720 meters. But I am kind of confused as to how the horizontal velocities can be perpendicular? Is this scenario possible? Also after that if they are perpendicular, how do you go about finding the solution?

Best Answer

Imagine it as a 3-dimensional problem, not a 2-dimensional one. I assume you may ignore effects of air resistance. Suppose it's an east-west cliff, and we're standing on the south side of the edge. Then one ball is (at time $t=0$) thrown horizontally in the north-east direction, the other one north-west.

Their vertical velocity at time $t$ is entirely due to Earth's gravity and is equal to $gt$. Their vertical distance travelled is $\frac12gt^2$, so if the height of the cliff is $h$, that happens at a time $t_h$ when $\frac12gt^2=h \implies t_h=\sqrt{\frac{2h}g}.$

Now look at the horizontal distance they travelled in that time: $6t_h$ and $8t_h$. When viewed from above, their paths are straight lines (in NE and NW direction) and a right-angled triangle with leg lengths 6 and 8 has a third leg of length 10 (by Pythagoras' theorem). So $10t_h = 120$ and $t_h = 12$. You can plug that into the formula $\frac12gt^2$ and (if you're allowed to approximate $g$ with 10), the result is 720m.

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