A ball is dropped from a building onto a scale below. The scale reads 92.5 N at the moment of impact. What is the mass of the ball?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The formula to find the required force is force = mass in kg × acceleration in m/s². F=ma To find the mass of an object we must isolate mass. To do this, we divide both sides by the acceleration. We know that acceleration due to gravity on Earth is -9.8 m/s². F/a = ma/a F/a = m Then we plug in the numbers from the problem. 92.5 N / 9.8 m/s² = 9.43 kg which rounds to 9.4 kg Mass is always positive. Even though the gravitational acceleration is negative, scales don't typically read negative forces. They assume that the user understands which way the forces are going.

A Ball Is Dropped from a Building onto a Scale