Projectile motion of a cannon ball

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on calculating the initial velocity of a cannonball fired at a 40-degree angle, which travels 300 meters horizontally before hitting a cliff that is 10 meters higher than the cannon's position. The initial calculations involve using the equations of motion, specifically integrating the velocity components. The final consensus is that the correct initial velocity is 48.8 m/s, as opposed to the initially calculated 42.7124 m/s, which was deemed too low for the distance covered.

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  • Knowledge of trigonometric functions in physics
  • Ability to integrate basic physics equations
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Ry122
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a ball is fired from a cannon at an angle of 40 degrees to the horizontal and it travels 300m before hitting the side of a cliff which is 10 meters higher than the cannons position.
Determine the initial velocity.

The ball has a negative velocity when it hits the cliff.

My attempt:
Where v = the balls initial velocity
y component of velocity = -9.81t + Vsin40

integrate this and get

y position = .5*-9.8t^2 + vsin40t

x component of velocity = vcos40

integrate this and get

x position = vcos40tUsing the expression for x velocity, solve for t at 300m in the x direction and get the expression
t=300/vcos40

Sub this into the expression for the y position above and solve for v.I'm unsure if this is the correct way to go about doing this. The velocity I ended up with is 42.7124ms^-1 which seems a bit slow for the distance it covers.
 
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Your method is correct.
I check your answer, but I got the initial speed is 48.8 m/s.
 

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