Question

1. A bowling ball sitting of a shelf has 30 joules of potential energy with respect to the floor. If the ball falls off the shelf, how much kinetic energy will it have just before it hits the floor, if you ignore the small amount of air friction?

Answer 1

The potential energy of the bowling ball gets converted into kinetic energy when the bowling ball falls off the shelf. Thus just before the ball hits the floor all the potential energy it had would be converted into kinetic energy.

Therefore Kinetic energy of the ball just before the ball hits the floor = 30 Joules