Speed

Applying Poyla
How to Solve it

1) What do you know?
motorcycle velocity --86 mph
distance baseball pitched-- 60.5 feet
motorcycle head start--10ft
baseball win-3 ft
the motorcycle and the baseball transit distances in an equal time.

2) What do you want to know?

The velocity of the baseball

3) Draw a picture

Vb (velocity of the baseball)*t(time)=60.5 feet

Vm(velocity of the motorcycle-86mph)*t(time)=distance of the motorcycle(ft)

distance of the motorcycle=60.5 feet-headstart(ft)-loss(ft)=(60.5-10-3)ft

so Vb*t=60.5
or t=60.5/Vb

and 86*t=47.5
or t=47.5/86

equate the times

60.5/Vb=47.5/86

Solve for Vb

Vb=60.5/47.5*86 mph

4) Check answer

Baseball lore
In the 70s Gay Talese wrote a story about this fictional pitcher who had a 150 mph fastball .
A good fastball hurl by a baseball pitcher is on the order of 95 mph

BTW my favorite conversion for velocity is 60 mph=88 ft/sec.

Rap

Thanks raprap.