Answer
29.4m
Work Step by Step
The pipe strikes the ground at a speed of 24m/s. The acceleration due to gravity has a magnitude of $9.8m/s^2$. This means that each second, the velocity increases by 9.8m/s. Since the wrench was dropped, the initial velocity was 0m/s.
We use the equation:
$v =v0 + at$ Where v0 = initial velocity = 0
We get $24m/s = (9.8 m/s^2)t $ and solving for t we get
t = 2.45 seconds
Now that we have the time it took to reach the ground, we can use the equation
$x = x0 +v0*t + (1/2)at^2$
This can be re-written as
$\Delta x = v0*t +(1/2)at^2 $
Once again, v0 = 0, $a = 9.81 m/s^2$ and we now know t = 2.45s
Using all this information we have
$\Delta x = 29.4m$
