Question:
Ball Throws
Student Time (seconds)
Jake 2.5
Pete 3
Leroy 3.5
Connor 4 Four students tried out for a softball team. Each student threw the ball from the pitcher’s mound to home plate. The coach recorded how many seconds it took each throw to reach home plate.
Which student threw the ball with the greatest force?
A) Connor
B) Jake
C) Leroy
D) Pete
Jake threw the ball with the greatest force among the four students.
Answer: Option B
Explanation:
The force given by the student to through the ball will be converted into the kinetic energy of the ball. So, the maximum force given by the student the maximum will be the velocity of the ball. As velocity is stated as the distance covered by time.
So, velocity is found as inversely proportionate to time. Thus the ball thrown with the greatest force will have the greatest velocity but the time taken by the ball to reach the home plate will be the least. The mathematical expression as follows:
[tex]\text { Force } \propto \text { Energy } \propto \text { kinetic energy when the ball is in motion }[/tex]
Then,
[tex]\begin{aligned} \text {Force } \propto \text { kinetic energy when the ball is in motion } \\ \propto \text { Product of mass and square of the velocity } \end{aligned}[/tex]
Thus,
[tex]\text {Force } \propto \text { velocity } \propto 1 / \text {time}[/tex]
So, as the ball thrown by Jake reaches the home plate at the least time i.e. 2.5 seconds so he would have thrown the ball with the greatest force.
