Homework Help Forum: calculus

Posted by Jeff on Monday, October 26, 2009 at 3:22am.

A flag pole is 40 feet high and stands on level ground. a flag is attached to a 120 foot rope passing through a pulley at the top of the flagpole. The other end of the rope is tied to a car at ground level. If car was driving directly away from flagpole at 3ft/sec, how fast is flag rising when top of flag is 20 ft off ground?

• calculus - Reiny, Monday, October 26, 2009 at 8:15am

  At a time of t seconds, let the height of the flag be h feet, then the distance to the top of the pole is 40-h feet and length of rope from the top of the pole to the car is 80+h feet. let the car be x feet from the base of the pole. given: dx/dt = 3 ft/s fing: dh/dt , when h = 20 I see Pythagoras here, x^2 + 40^2 = (80+h)^2 2xdx/dt = 2(80+h)dh/dt dh/dt = xdx/dt/(80+h) when h = 20 x^2 + 1600 = 10000 x = 8400 x = √8400 finally dh/dt = √8400(3)/100 = 2.47 feet/second

  
  

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