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Jim is standing beside a pool. He drops a weight from 4 feet above the surface if the water in the pool. The weight travels a total distance of 12 feet down before landing on the bottom of the pool. Explain how you can write a sum of integers to find the depth of the water?



Answer :

Treat the surface of the water as 0. The initial height of the weight was 4 ft above the surface of the water, therefore making it have an initial height of +4. If it travels 12 ft downward to hit the bottom of the pool, that means its height decreased by 12, so its falling is -12. To calculate the depth of the pool, use initial height minus drop distance, so 4 - 12. The depth of the pool is 8 ft.

Explanation:

Let 0 be the surface of the water.

The height 4 feet above the surface would be +4.

A 12-foot drop would be -12.

Together, this would be 4+(-12) = -8. This means the bottom of the pool is 8 feet below the surface; it means that the pool is 8 feet deep.

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