Question

Salmon often jump waterfalls to reach their

Answer 1

Answer:

5.0 m/s

Explanation:

The horizontal motion of the salmon is uniform, so the horizontal component of the salmon's velocity is constant and it is

$v_x = u cos \theta$

where u is the initial speed and $\theta=37.7^{\circ}$. The horizontal distance travelled by the salmon is

$d=v_x t = (ucos \theta)t$

where d = 1.95 m and t is the time needed to reach the final point.

Re-arranging for t,

$t=\frac{d}{v_x}=\frac{d}{u cos \theta}$ (1)

Along the vertical direction, the equation of motion is

$y=h+u_y t -\frac{1}{2}gt^2$

where:

y = 0.311 m is the final height reached by the salmon

h = 0 is the initial height

$u_y = u sin \theta$ is the vertical component of the initial velocity of the salmon

$g=9.81 m/s^2$ is the acceleration of gravity

t is the time

Substituting t as found in eq.(1), we get the equation

$y=(u sin \theta) \frac{d}{u cos \theta}- \frac{1}{2}g\frac{d^2}{u^2 cos^2 \theta}=d tan \theta - \frac{1}{2}g\frac{d^2}{u^2 cos^2 \theta}$

and we can solve this formula for u, the initial speed of the salmon:

$y=d tan \theta - \frac{1}{2}g\frac{d^2}{u^2 cos^2 \theta}\\\\u=\sqrt{\frac{gd^2}{2(dtan \theta -y)cos^2 \theta}}=\sqrt{\frac{(9.81)(1.95)^2}{2((1.95)(tan 37.7^{\circ}) -0.311)cos^2 37.7^{\circ}}}=5.0 m/s$