A 50.0-kilogram skydiver jumps from an airplane and is in freefall for 20 seconds. Immediately before she opens her parachute, her kinetic energy is 78,400 joules. If the amount of heat her motion transferred to her surroundings during freefall was 884,000 joules, how far did she fall during her freefall?

Question

(Assume the skydiver's gravitational potential energy is only transformed into heat and kinetic energy, and assume the rate of acceleration due to Earth's gravity is 9.81 m/s/s.)

A. 1,960 meters

B. 1,560 meters

C. 9,620 meters

Answer 1

falling PI conversion= KE at end + Heat
50*g*h=78.4e3 + 88.3e3
compute h

Answer 2

d = 0.5g*t^2 = 4.9*20^2 = 1960 m.

Answer 3

bob is correct
... except he got the wrong exponent in the energy dissipated

henry did not take the dissipated energy into account