You are at a baseball game and the pticher throws a fast ball that accelerates to the batter at 50 m/s^2. Assume that the baseball has a mass of 0.15 kg. How much force (in Newtons) must the batter apply to the ball to lay down a perfect bunt that stops dead in front of home plate?

Answer 1

Baseballs do not accelerate after being released. You (or your instructor) seem to be confusing acceleration with velocity.

A reasonable speed for a fast ball is 95 mph = 42.5 m/s
Even Sandy Koufax could not throw at 50 m/s, but he came close.

If they had wanted you to compute the force necessary to bunt the ball to a stop, when thrown at that SPEED, they should have told you the time interval of ball-bat contact, or how far the bat is retracted during the bunt.

IF 50 m/s^2 is the deceleration rate that the bat must apply to the ball, then use F = m*a for the force that the bat applies.

I wonder what school district or online institution would assign such a misguided question.