A diver runs horizontally off the end of a diving board with an initial speed of 1.75m/s. If the diving board is 3m above the water, what is the diver's speed just before he enters the water?

When I worked out this problem, I came up with an answer of 7.67m/s. The answer at the back of the text- book was 7.87m/s. I was wondering where I came up short? I used the equation to find the landing site 'x' to come up with an answer of 1.37m. I used this value with Vx(initial) to figure my time (which = 0.78s). I then used the 0.78s in the Vy=-gt to come up with 7.67m/s.

Any help would greatly be appreciated!

loeyuey

you did the problem right, but you are only taking into account the y component velocity. use pythagorean theorem to add the x and y component velocities to get the total velocity. so 7.67^2 + 1.75 ^2 = v^2 solve for v.