Harold the Hurler is a physics student who is renowned for his baseball pitching

Question

Harold the Hurler is a physics student who is renowned for his baseball pitching arm. In order to determine the amount of work he performs in throwing a baseball, Harold devises an experiment. He stands at the bottom of a deep pit and hurls a 0.147-kg baseball through an open third-floor window in a nearby building. Harold's aim is so accurate that the ball then smoothly enters the tube of the Baseball Absorber that Harold invented and patented. In this device the ball compresses a spring until it comes momentarily to rest, and this maximum amount of compression is recorded as 0.469 m. The spring's force constant is 861 N/m, and the position of the baseball's momentary rest is 7.85 m above ground level. The point in the pit where the Hurler starts his pitch is 12.1 m below ground level. How much work does Harold perform on the baseball? Take g = 9.80 m/s2.

Explanation / Answer

There are two places where the energy (work) that has been imparted to the baseball has been stored - in gravitational potential energy (mgh) and in the potential energy of the spring (

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