Question

You need to know the height of a tower, but darkness obscures the ceiling. You note that a pendulum extending from the ceiling almost touches the floor and that its period is 15 s. The acceleration of gravity is 9.81 m/s2 .
How tall is the tower? Answer in units of m

Answer 1

Answer:

L=55.9m

Explanation:

The equation for the period of a simple pendulum is:

$T=2\pi\sqrt{\frac{L}{g}}$

In our case what we know is the period and the acceleration of gravity, and we need to know the length of the pendulum, so we can write:

$L=(\frac{T}{2\pi})^2g$

Which for our values is:

$L=(\frac{15s}{2\pi})^2(9.81m/s^2)=55.9m$