Could someone explain why you divide m * v^2 in the kinetic energy eq by 2?

A33.1 g copper object is launched from a 1.5 m 30° steel incline positioned on the floor by being pulled up a string attached to a 50.0 g mass suspended vertically over a pulley. the object is projected towards a glass table where it lands when it is at the point along its trajectory with the lowest speed. it comes to a halt when it clears the opposite edge of the table. it then falls and lands on 9 physics texts each 5 cm thick that are stacked on the floor on the opposite side of the table. assume that the table does not have a ledge and the rectangular object experiences 0.05 n of air resistance as it falls towards the books. how far and how long did the object travel and how fast does it hit the books. assume that at the moment the copper object leaves the incline, the massless string and ideal pulley break off

On your wedding day your lover gives you a gold ring of mass 3.67 g. 48 years later its mass is 3.44 g. on the average how many atoms were abrated from the ring during each second of your marriage? the atomic mass of gold is 197 u. don't enter units

Two cannon balls weighing 18 kg and 24 kg are chained together and fired horizontally with a velocity of 165 m/s from the top of a 21-m wall. the chain breaks during the flight of the cannonballs and the 18-kg cannonball strikes the ground at t = 1.5 s, at a distance of 240 m from the foot of the wall, and 7 m to the right of the line of fire. determine the position of the other cannonball at that instant. neglect the resistance of the air.