Clarifications for lab report 3

Clarifications for lab report 3

How to find the acceleration that you graph need to graph for graph 2 and 3. 

 

  VERY IMPORTANT.

 

Use the times and distances that you measured in the equation: d = 1/2 a t², solved for a.

Do NOT use Newton's second law to find this acceleration: if you did, your graphs would not tell you anything about whether your experiment confirms that law or not, so your graphs 2 and 3 would be meaningless. They are meant to allow you to check that the relationship between the actual accelerations, that is the accelerations measured experimentally, and the actual masses or applied forces, is indeed Newton's second law. So it is CRUCIAL that what you graph in graphs 2 and 3 be these actual accelerations; and those you find by using the actual times and distances that you measured, and the equation d = 1/2 a t².

Lab manual pages

No, you do not need to hand in the pages from the lab manual.

 

When finding the acceleration from graph 1, how can I make sure that I'm doing it right, ?

You can't be 100% sure... but 99% you can. Do the practice examples at the bottom of:

http://physicslabssdeclark.blogspot.com/2012/10/how-to-find-experimentally-value-of.html 

If you're getting them right, it seems you know what you're doing ;-) If not, go over the material on that webpage.