A 1400 kg wrecking ball hangs from a 20-m-long cable. the ball is pulled back until the cable makes an angle of 30.0 ∘ with the vertical. part aby how much has the gravitational potential energy of the ball changed?

From the geometry of the problem, the 20 m-long cable creates the hypotenuse of a right triangle, with the extended of the other two sides of size 20 m * cos (30 deg), which is around 17.3 m. Therefore, the ball has increased by 20 m - 17.3 m = 2.7 m.

The potential energy will have altered by m*g*h, which is 1400 kg * 9.8 m/s^2 * 1.6 m, or about 37044 joules.