(Exercise 23 p.

336)
A fountain in a city park shoots water from a
nozzle. The height of the water t seconds after
leaving the nozzle is given by
H 16t 2 72t 40 .
1. Determine the values of t that make
sense for this model.
Since t represents time after water
leaves the nozzle, we need t 0 .
2. Determine the time at which the water
in the fountain reaches the maximum
height.
1. A plane is dropping emergency food supplies
to relieve famine in a less-developed country.
Crates are dropped, and the height of the
create above the ground at time t is given by
the equation H 160 16t 2 .
a. Graph this equation.
b. Are there any values for t that it would
not make sense to use for this equation
because of the physical characteristics of
a falling crate?
c. Find the time at which the crate will
strike the ground.

We need to find the t-coordinate of the

vertex, which is
b 72 a. (Separate Picture)
t 2.25 seconds.
2a 2 16
b. It wouldn’t make sense for “t”
to equal a negative number
3. Determine the height of the water at
the maximum point. c. 3.16 units of time after being dropped

Substitute 2.25 for t,

H 16t 2 72t 40
2
= 16 2.25 72 2.25 40
=121
The maximum height is 121 feet.

4. Find the time at which the water will

hit the ground.

To answer this we need to find the

t-intercepts. Using the quadratic
formula with a = 16 , b = 72 and
c = 40 we find
b b 2 4ac
2a
2
72 72 4 16 40
2 16
72 7744
32
72 88
32

So
72 88 72 88
t 5 or t 0.5
32 32
Since we required t 0 the only
reasonable answer is t = 5. The water
hits the ground 5 seconds after leaving
the nozzle.
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