Question

A hawk of mass $10kg$ dives to catch a mouse. During dive it loses $500J$ of its potential energy. The height from where it begins its dive is (take $g=10m/s^2$)

Answer 1

Step 1. Given data

Mass of the hawk $m=10kg$

Change in gravitational potential energy $∆P{E}_g=500J$

Step 2. Formula used

$∆P{E}_g=mg∆h$

where $m$ is the mass, $∆h$is the change in height $g$ is the gravitational constant.(take $g=10m/s^2$)

Step 3. Find the height

Let the change in height be $∆h.$

Then the change in height is

$$\begin{gathered} ∆P{E}_g=mg∆h \\ \Rightarrow 500=10\times 10\times ∆h \\ \Rightarrow ∆h=5 \end{gathered}$$

Hence, the hawk will dive $5m$ to catch the mouse.