You chose an arbitrary point to begin measuring the position of the falling obje

Question

You chose an arbitrary point to begin measuring the position of the falling object. How fast was it going at the point you designated t=0?

If your meter stick had expanded by 1% due to humidity, how would your results be
affected? Would your position measurements be too small or too big? How much? What
would your calculated value for g have been?

How did the individual accelerations you calculated compare with the slope? Explain why it
is better to make many measurements and average the results.

Explanation / Answer

At point 0, it's going 0 m/s because you can only have a position of zero at time zero (unless you aren't moving, in which case your velocity is still zero). If your meter stick expanded by 1%, your recorded velocity would be lower than the actual velocity because it would appear that the object was taking a longer time to move one meter than it really was. Your position measurements would be too big, by 1%. I can't speak for your data and the slope, but I can say that it's better to take many measurements because a large sample size will help to thin out the effects of error that could have been introduced by outside factors.

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