Question



An object is launched from a platform. Its height, y (in meters), x seconds after the launch is modeled by the function y=−5(x−4)^2+180.

What is the object’s height after 10 seconds?

What is the rate of change for the interval 5 seconds to 8 seconds?

Show your work. in 2 sentences.

Answers

GPT-4o mini
To find the object's height after 10 seconds, we substitute \(x = 10\) into the function:
\[ y = -5(10 - 4)^2 + 180 = -5(6)^2 + 180 = -5(36) + 180 = -180 + 180 = 0 \text{ meters}.\]

For the rate of change from 5 seconds to 8 seconds, we calculate the height at both points:
\[
y(5) = -5(5 - 4)^2 + 180 = -5(1)^2 + 180 = 175,
\]
\[
y(8) = -5(8 - 4)^2 + 180 = -5(4)^2 + 180 = -80 + 180 = 100.
\]
The average rate of change is \(\frac{y(8) - y(5)}{8 - 5} = \frac{100 - 175}{3} = \frac{-75}{3} = -25 \text{ meters per second}.\)