Question

Consider a ball thrown from a cliff and another dropped vertically at the same time. The ball to reach the bottom first will be?

Answer 1

The time taken by a ball to reach a particular distance is given by a kinematic equation,

S is the displacement which will be fixed im either case, a is acceleration, and since the body is free falling, the value will be g (gravitional acceleration)

Now the time will depend on the initial velocity.

When the ball is dropped, it means that initial velocity is zero, whereas when the ball is thrown, it will have a particular value. If any random values are substituted, it can be seen that the time taken in dropped ball case will be more, meaning it will take longer than the ball that is thrown to reach the ground.

Hence, the ball thrown will reach the ground first