# Fortran: determine the horizontal distance of a ball

• Fortran
Im writing a program to determine the horizontal distance of a ball but getting this error:

Y(t)=Y0+VY0*t+(1/2)*g*t^2
1
Error: Unclassifiable statement at (1)

Distance=(X(t))^2+(Y(t))^2
1
Error: Unclassifiable error at (1)

My code is as follows:

PROGRAM as_the_ball_is_thrown

IMPLICIT NONE

INTEGER::Y0, X0, V0, g, theta, t
CHARACTER::Distance, VY0, VX0, X(t), Y(t)

X0=0
Y0=0
V0=20
g=9.81

WRITE(*,*) "Please enter amount of time the ball traveled"

WRITE(*,*) "Please enter the angle to which the ball was thrown"

DO
Y(t)=Y0+VY0*t+(1/2)*g*t^2
X(t)=X0+VX0*t
VX0=V0*COS(theta*3.14159/180)
VY0=V0*SIN(theta*3.14159/180)
Distance=(X(t))^2+(Y(t))^2
END DO

WRITE(*,*) "The horizontal distance the ball traveled is"
WRITE(*,*) "meters"

END PROGRAM as_the_ball_is_thrown

Can anyone tell me why this is wrong?

Thanks!

AlephZero
Homework Helper

^ is not the Fortran operator for "raise to a power". It should be **.

Also (1/2) will be evaluated in integer arithmetic since 1 and 2 are both integers, and the integer division will give 0 which is not what you want. The best fix is to replace (1/2) by 0.5.

Declaring Y0, X0, V0, g, theta, t as INTEGER is probably not a good idea, especially since you then try to set g = 9.81 (which will actually set it to 9).

Mark44
Mentor

In addition to what AlephZero said, you have problems with your declarations for X(t) and Y(t). For one thing, this is not how you declare arrays. For another thing, why are these character-type variables? That doesn't make any sense.

Awesome thanks! That fixed all the errors. Now for some reason the program just stops and doesn't print anything after a person enters the angle. Do you guys know why?

Mark44
Mentor

There are a couple things wrong.
1) You have what I believe is an infinite loop below where you shouldn't be using a loop at all. OTOH, if you are trying to set the values of an array to certain values, maybe that's what you're trying to do. If that's the case, the following code won't work, because array indexes have to be integer values 1, 2, 3, and so on.

It's hard to tell what you're trying to do, though.
Code:
DO
Y(t)=Y0+VY0*t+(1/2)*g*t^2
X(t)=X0+VX0*t
VX0=V0*COS(theta*3.14159/180)
VY0=V0*SIN(theta*3.14159/180)
Distance=(X(t))^2+(Y(t))^2
END DO

2. Distance is computed, so you don't need to READ it, just WRITE it.
Code:
WRITE(*,*) "The horizontal distance the ball traveled is"
WRITE(*,*) "meters"