In an amusement park, there is a water slide that starts h meters above its base where people slide out 1.2 m above the surface of a pool. You may assume there is essentially no friction between a person and the slide.

Question

a) What should be the maximum (safe) height h of the slide if the length of the pool is 3.0 m?

b) Does the mass of the person matter?

c) What should be the maximum (safe) height h if the slide is 0.6 m above the pool?

Answer 1

a person should land in the pool (as opposed to passing over it)
... their velocity is such that it allows the fall from 1.2 m before they clear the 3.0 m length

find the time to free-fall 1.2 m
... divide the time into 3.0 m to find the max safe velocity
... calculate the max safe slide height ... h = v^2 / (2 g)

mass is not used in any of the calculations

use the same technique for the 0.6 m drop

Answer 2

when dividing the time by 3.0, wouldnt the answer be in s/m, which is not the correct velocity term. And when dividing 3.0 by the time, it comes up as 6 m/s which seems a little too high. Am I wrong here?

I got 0.49 seconds for the time.

Answer 3

he said to divide the time into 3.0m
That is, divide the 3.0m by time, giving m/s