Question

in 1960, u.s. air force captain joseph kittinger broke the records for the both the fastest and the longest sky dive...he fell an amazing 19.5 miles! (cool facts: there is almost no air at that altitude, and he said that he almost didn’t feel like he was falling because there was no whistling from the wind or movement of his clothing through the air. the temperature at that altitude was 36 degrees fahrenheit below zero!) his average speed while falling was 254 miles/hour. how much time did the dive last approximately?
4.6 minutes
28 minutes
7 minutes
13 minutes
1.2 hours
1.2 minutes
3.1 minutes
35 minutes

Explanation:

Step1: Recall speed - time - distance formula

We know that speed $v=\frac{d}{t}$, where $v$ is speed, $d$ is distance and $t$ is time. Rearranging for time gives $t = \frac{d}{v}$.

Step2: Identify values of $d$ and $v$

The distance $d = 19.5$ miles and the speed $v=254$ miles/hour.

Step3: Calculate time in hours

$t=\frac{d}{v}=\frac{19.5}{254}\text{ hours}\approx0.0768$ hours.

Step4: Convert hours to minutes

Since 1 hour = 60 minutes, $t = 0.0768\times60\text{ minutes}\approx4.6$ minutes.

Answer:

4.6 minutes