Two coconuts fall freely from rest at the same time, one twice as high as the other. if the coconut from the shorter tree takes 2.0 s to reach the ground, how long will it take the other coconut to reach the ground?

Take the first coconut's starting position to be the origin, and the downward direction to be positive. The first coconut's position is determined by

where is the acceleration due to gravity.

So if it takes 2.0 s to reach the ground, then

(rounding to 2 significant digits)

The second coconut starts 20 m higher than the first, so its initial displacement is -20 m relative to the origin, and its overall position over time is given by

Reaching the ground is a matter of obtaining , which requires a time of