Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-1-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2013/4/solution

For maximum projectile range from an elevated launch, let be horizontal projectile range from the tower and the launch angle above horizontal. The projectile motion trajectory is
Put . For a fixed , its largest possible occurs at ; the envelope is . The furthest attainable ground point satisfies , so
The optimum angle is less than for and approaches as . The result is the maximum horizontal distance, using uniform gravity and no drag.

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