Henry gets into an elevator on the 50th floor of a building and it begins moving at t=0.00 s. His apparent weight is shown over the next 24.0s.
What is Henry's mass if his maximum apparent weight within the elevator is 500.0N?
Henry gets into an elevator on the 50th floor of a building and it begins moving at t = 0.00 s. The figure shows his apparent weight over the next 24.0 s.
If Henry's maximum apparent weight is 500 N and the acceleration due to gravity can be taken to be 10 m/s^2, Henry's mass is 500/10 = 50 kg.
The graph shows, Henry's weight and time on the y and x axes respectively. An assumption is made that the elevator is moving down. As the maximum apparent weight is 500, it can be inferred that Henry travels for 4 seconds at 5 m/s^2, for 16 seconds at 2.5 m/s^2 and for 4 seconds at 0.
The distance traveled in 24 s is `(1/2)*5*4^2` + `5*4*16+(1/2)*2.5*16^2` + `(20 + 16*2.5)*4` = 920 m