A 1.0 kg baseball is flying at 10 m/s. How much kinetic energy does it have? Potential energy?
(a) 10 J, 20 J
(b) 50 J, 20 J
(c) unknown, 50 J
(d) 50 J, unknown

Video Transcript

This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. A baseball flying at 10 meters per second with mass of one kilogram has a kinetic energy equal to one half mass times velocity squared. So it's one half times one kilogram times ten meters per second squared, and ten squared is 100, divided by two is 50 Joules. So that's the kinetic energy so that narrows things down to options B or D. Then it asks for the potential energy. Now, potential energy is m g h but we don't know what the height is and so we cannot calculate potential energy. So, the answer is D.