Serway & Jewett — Motion in One Dimension: Problem 31

You have been hired by the prosecuting attorney as an expert witness in a robbery case. The defendant is accused of stealing an expensive and massive diamond ring in its box from a jewelry store. A witness to the alleged crime testified that she saw the defendant run from the store, stop next to an apartment building, and throw the box straight upward to an accomplice leaning out a fourth-floor window. When captured, the defendant did not have the stolen box with him and claimed innocence. When the witness testified in court about the defendant's throwing of the box to an accomplice, the defending attorney argued that it would be impossible to throw the box upward that high to reach the window in question. The bottom of the window is 19.0 m above the sidewalk. You have set up a demonstration in which the defendant was asked by the judge to throw a baseball horizontally as fast as he could and a radar device was used to determine that he can throw the ball at 20 m/s. (a) What testimony can you provide about the ability of the defendant to throw the box to the window in question? (b) What argument might the defense attorney make about the process used to develop your expert testimony? What might be your counter argument? Ignore any effects of air resistance on the box.