Our high school student now has a question about potential energy due to gravity. she says, "i don't get the formula pe = mgh. it seems i can change the amount of potential energy something has just by changing my h = 0 point. say i'm holding a 3kg book over my head (two meters above my feet), but also say i'm on top of a 50 meter building. what's the potential energy of the book? is it mg2 (measuring from my feet) or is it mg52 (measuring from the ground)? "

An insurance company wants to know if the average speed at which men drive cars is higher than that of women drivers. the company took a random sample of 27 cars driven by men on a highway and found the mean speed to be 72 miles per hour with a standard deviation of 2.2 miles per hour. another sample of 18 cars driven by women on the same highway gave a mean speed of 68 miles per hour with a standard deviation of 2.5 miles per hour. assume that the speeds at which all men and all women drive cars on this highway are both approximately normally distributed with unknown and unequal population standard deviations.

An electron and a proton have the same kinetic energy upon entering a region of constant magnetic field and their velocity vectors are perpendicular to the magnetic field. suppose the magnetic field is strong enough to allow the particles to circle in the field. note: you'll need to look up the masses for an electron and proton. 1) what is the ratio of the radii of their circular paths rp/re?

After a big snowfall, you take your favorite rocket-powered sled out to a wide field. the field is 195 m across, and you know that your sled accelerates at a rate of 3.65 m/s2 when the rocket is on. how much time will it take the sled to cross the field starting from rest, assuming the rocket is on the whole time?