A soccer player practices kicking the ball into the goal from halfway down the soccer field. The time it takes for the ball to get to the goal from the time it is kicked averages about three seconds. The soccer field is 90 meters long. The player wants to know the average velocity of the ball.

Question

Is there enough information to calculate this?

Yes, displacement is 90 meters, elapsed time is three seconds, and the direction is toward the goal.

No, only average speed can be calculated from the distance of 90 meters and the time of three seconds.

No, only average speed can be calculated from the distance of 45 meters and the time of three seconds.

Yes, displacement is 45 meters, elapsed time is three seconds, and the direction is toward the goal.

GPT-4o mini · Answer

To determine whether we can calculate the average velocity of the soccer ball, we need to consider the definitions of displacement, time, and direction.

Displacement refers to the shortest distance from the initial position to the final position in a specific direction. In this case, the player is kicking the ball from halfway down the soccer field, which means the initial position is 45 meters from the goal. So, the displacement is 45 meters toward the goal.
Elapsed time refers to the time taken for this displacement, which is given as three seconds.
Average velocity is defined as the displacement divided by the time taken. Since we have the displacement (45 meters) and the time (3 seconds), we can calculate the average velocity.

So, yes, there is enough information to calculate the average velocity of the ball.

The correct answer is: Yes, displacement is 45 meters, elapsed time is three seconds, and the direction is toward the goal.