Chapter 2 - Motion in One Dimension

Problem 29
Question
A steel ball bearing is dropped from the roof of a building (the initial velocity of
the ball is zero). An observer standing in front of a window 120 cm high notes
that the ball takes 0.125 s to fall from the top to the bottom of the window.
The ball bearing continues to fall, makes a completely elastic collision with a
horizontal sidewalk, and reappears at the bottom of the window 2.0 s after
passing it on the way down. How tall is the building? (The ball will have the
same speed at a point going up as it had going down after a completely elastic
collision.)

Answer
After passing the window, we can determine the ball’s speed as v1 = x/t1 +gt1 /2,
where x is the height of the window, and t1 the time spent passing it. To
determine the height of the bottom of the window, we find h = v1 t + gt2 /2,
where t is half the time the ball took to completely rebound back to its initial
position. Thus we have
 
t 1 t
h2 = x + gtt1 1 + .
t1 2 t1

The distance from the bottom of the window to the top of the building is given
by 2gh1 = v12 . Therefore the total height of the building can be found as:

v12 1
H = h1 + h2 = + v1 t + gt2 ≈ 20 m.
2g 2