A good baseball pitcher can throw a baseball toward home plate at 90 mi/h with a spin of 1950 rev/min. How many revolutions does the baseball make on its way to home plate? For simplicity, assume that the 60 ft path is a straight line.

The baseball will undergo 16 revolutions on its way to home plate.

Explanation:

As the parameters which are given are speed at which the baseball is thrown, (v = 90 mi/h) and the distance between the home plate and the ball thrown is 60 ft. Also the spin is said to 1950 rev/min, it indicates that the ball will undergo 1950 revolution in every single minute. So in order to determine the number of revolutions the baseball will make in its way to home plate, we have to first determine the time taken for the baseball to reach its home plate with the given speed.

As we know that speed can be obtained by the ratio of distance with time, in the present case, we know the speed and distance, then time can be obtained by ratio of distance with speed.

At first, we have to convert the speed from mi/h to ft/min

1 mi/hr = 5280 / 60 ft/min = 88 ft/min.

Then, Time = Distance/Speed = 60 / (90*80) = 60/7200=8.33 * 10⁻³ min

Since the ball undergoes 1950 revolutions in 1 min, then in 8.33 * 10⁻³ min, the number of revolutions will be 1950*8.33 * 10⁻³ = 16 rev

Thus, the baseball will undergo 16 revolutions on its way to home plate.