At the ground the ball will always have velocity along the direction of gravity. If upward motion is taken positive it will always have negative velocity at the ground because, if the ball was given an initial upward velocity then gravity will decelerate it and bring it down with a negative final velocity. If the ball is given an initial downward velocity then the ball will be further accelerated by gravity in the downward direction only, again maintaining negative direction. The magnitude however in both cases will be different. the final velocity at the ground will have higher magnitude in case of elevator moving downwards.
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Energy to lift something =
(mass of the object) x (gravity) x (height of the lift).
BUT ...
This simple formula only works if you use the right units.
Mass . . . kilograms
Gravity . . . meters/second²
Height . . . meters
For this question . . .
Mass = 55 megagram = 5.5 x 10⁷ grams = 5.5 x 10⁴ kilograms
Gravity (on Earth) = 9.8 m/second²
Height = 500 cm = 5.0 meters
So we have ...
Energy = (5.5 x 10⁴ kilogram) x (9.8 m/s²) x (5 m)
= 2,696,925 joules .
That's quite a large amount of energy ... equivalent to
straining at the rate of 1 horsepower for almost exactly an
hour, or burning a 100 watt light bulb for about 7-1/2 hours.
The reason is the large mass that's being lifted.
On Earth, that much mass weighs about 61 tons.
To determine the height of the object given the time, we simply use the given relation between height and time in the problem statement. It is given as:
h = -16t^2 + 127t
We substitute 55 seconds to t and obtain,
h = -16(55)^2 + 127(55)
h = - 41415
