Question

A teacher is demonstrating energy transformation with a basketball. He drops the ball from a fixed height and challenges his students to predict the height that the ball will bounce. • Student A predicts that the ball will bounce to the exact height it was dropped. • Student B predicts that the ball will bounce at a height lower than the height it was dropped. What is a reasonable rationale for the predictions of student A and student B? Be sure to include an explanation of the energy transformation as well.

Answer 1

The ball will bounce at a height lower than the height it was dropped.

Answer: Option B.

Explanation:

When a basket ball is thrown from a particular height, it bounces back. But the height it bounces back at is not exactly the same height from where it was thrown.

With further bounces, the energy of the basket ball goes on decreasing and the bounces go on getting smaller. This shows that there is a change in the energy of the basket ball with every bounce that the ball makes. Some energy lost from the ball gets absorbed by the court and some of the energy is changed into thermal energy.