Wiley Coyote has missed the Road Runner once again. This time he leaves horizontally off the edge of the cliff at 25 m/s. If he hits the 400 m from the base of the cliff, how high is the cliff?

Answer 1

The idea is to split the motion into two independent components.

The vertical motion is subject to the acceleration due to gravity, from which we can find the height of the cliff.

The horizontal motion is simply a uniform velocity of 25 m/s. If it reached 400 m from the cliff, it took 400/25=16 seconds to reach the bottom.

Find the height using:
H=ut+(1/2)gt²
where u=initial vertical velocity = 0
t=16 sec.