Question

Mickey, a daredevil mouse of mass 0.0225 kg, is attempting to become the world's first "mouse cannonball." He is loaded into a spring‑powered gun pointing up at some angle and is shot into the air. The gun's spring has a force constant of 68.7 N/m and is initially compressed a distance of 0.129 m from its relaxed position. If Mickey has a constant horizontal speed of 2.45 m/s while he is flying through the air, how high above his initial location in the gun does Mickey soar? Assume ?=9.81 m/s2.

please explain, tried a few times and kept getting it wrong

Answer 1

Solution) Here we mainly use formulas like spring potential energy , kinetic energy and maximum height .

Spring potential energy = (1/2)Kx^2

Here K is spring constant

x is distance compressed

Kinetic energy = (1/2)mv^2

Here m is mass

v is velocity

Maximum height , h = Vy^2 / (2g)

Vy is vertical velocity

g is acceleration due to gravity