Have you heard the expressions "shooting fish in a barrel" or "taking candy from a baby" ?
I've decided to take your points and try not to feel guilty about it.
A). That's it ! That's the equation, for ANY basketball on Earth. You wrote it right there in your question.
In that equation that you wrote, the ' r ' is the initial velocity. You said that Adam tossed it straight up, and it was going 10 meters per second when it left his hand. So ' r ' in the equation is +10. The equation is: <em>d = 10t - 5t² </em> . It tells you how high the ball is above its tossing height after any number of seconds. The ' t ' in the equation is the number of seconds. Any letter could have been used, but ' t ' was cleverly selected because it stands for 'time'.
B). You want to know where it is after 0.5 second ? All you have to do is put '0.5' into the equation wherever there's a ' t '. Do you really need somebody to do that for you ?
Well, OK. You're being so overly generous with your points . . .
Distance = 10 t - 5 t²
Distance = 10 (0.5) - 5 (0.5)²
Distance = 5 - 5(0.25)
Distance = 5 - 1.25
<em>Distance = 3.75 meters </em>
<u>positive</u> 3.75 means <u>above</u> Adam's hand.
A thinking exercise: -- He tossed the ball upwards at 10 meters per second. -- Why is it not 5 meters above his hands after 0.5 second?
