Concept explainers
A ball is thrown straight up. What will be the instantaneous velocity at the top of its path? What will be its acceleration at the top? Why are your answers different?
The instantaneous velocity and acceleration at the top of the path when a ball is thrown straight up.
The reason for these values to be different.
Explanation of Solution
At the beginning of the upward motion of the ball, it has a certain velocity but at every instant of its motion there is a gravitational pull acting downward and due to this gravitational pulling, upward motion of the ball is decelerated, that is, on the way up the velocity of the ball decreases and at the top of its path, velocity of the ball becomes zero
Since every instant of its motion, there is a gravitational pull acting downward, at the top of its path also there is gravitational acceleration which is
At the top, velocity and acceleration are different, because at the top velocity becomes zero for a particular instant of time but gravitational acceleration is always present for every instant of motion of the ball which is acting downwards.
Conclusion:
Instantaneous velocity at the top of its path is zero.
And the acceleration of the ball acting downward is
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