Answer to Question #133932 in Physics for James H

Question

For a physics free fall question, it asks, A basketball player achieves a hang time, the
total time of flight, of 1.09 s when dunking the ball.

What vertical height will he attain?

The acceleration of gravity is 9.8 m/s^2.

The solution requires you to divide the original time by 2, why would you do that? Couldn't you just plug it into the formula h = 1/2(-9.8)(1.09)^2 and get your answer?
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Answer 1

According to Wikipedia, "Hang time [...] in basketball [is] the length of time a player stays in the air after jumping to score or pass the ball."

Therefore, it means that 1.09 seconds passed between the moment when the player jumped and landed.

It means that half of time the player was moving upward in the air until reached the maximum height and half of time he was moving down. Of course, we assume that air resistance is 0.

That is why the maximum height requires you to use (1.09/2) seconds.