Imagine you stand next to one direction of I-215 on campus and you measure the v

Question

Imagine you stand next to one direction of I-215 on campus and you measure the velocity of the cars passing by. Write an Excel (or similar) list of 70 realistic velocities you may have measured (you don’t need to measure them actually). Generate a Histogram of the distribution of velocities in Excel (or similar software); use 9 intervals/bins. Please make sure your graph and your calculations are near the top left corner of the worksheet. Calculate the average velocity of the cars. Assuming that each car weighs 3300 pounds, calculate the kinetic energy of each car and the average of this energy. Find the velocity associated with this average. Compare to the average of the velocity of the cars and DISCUSS.

Explanation / Answer

average velocity in your case can be find using the formula:

sum of all velocity measured / number of velocity measured

Kinetic energy will be found using the formula

1/2*m*v2

again the average kinetic energy will be found using the formula

sum of all kinetic energy / number of observations

you need to compare the above average velocity with the kinetic energy of average velocity got in first step.

They will be nearly equal.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.