Question

Jacob’s classroom is on the second floor of his high school building. He’s sitting at his desk and trying to solve a quadratic equation. Every time he makes a mistake, he crumples a piece of paper and attempts to throw it in the trash can. One time, however, he accidentally throws the ball of paper out the window. The quadratic expression -16t2 − 8t + 24, where t is the time (in seconds), models the height (in feet) of the crumpled ball of paper after passing through the open window at t = 0.

In the expression -16t2 − 8t + 24, what does the constant term represent?

Answer 1

The constant term in the equation is 24.

This is the height of the paper passing through the window at t=0.

This can be proven by replacing t with 0 in the equation, anything multiplied by 0 equals 0, so when t = 0 the height would be 24.

So the paper is 24 feet above the ground.