You throw a ball straight up from a rooftop. The ball misses the rooftop on its way down and eventually strikes the ground. A mathematical model can be used to describe the relationship for the ball's height above the ground, y, after x seconds.
x, seconds after the ball is thrown y, ball's height, in feet, above the ground
1 259
3 231
4 169
a. Find the quadratic function y = ax2 + bx + c
whose graph passes through the given points.
b. Use the function in part (a) to find the value for y when x = 5.