If you have a distance of 4.0 and the avg time for the object to fall to the gro

Question

If you have a distance of 4.0 and the avg time for the object to fall to the ground is .82, then you calculate the Experimental Acceleration (a) = 2x/t^2 = 11.9m/s^2

Then it asks for the percentage error which is actual (9.81m/s^2) - experimental / actual x 100:
9.81 m/s^2 - 11.9 m/s^2 / 9.81 m/s^2 x 100 = -21.3

Is it possible to have a negative acceleration for an experiment like this?
Then it goes on to ask:
Explanation of Error: Be generous in including all the errors. Your grade depends on how well you explain your result.

Please help me answer this, I am so lost!

Explanation / Answer

Well your the -21.3 is not an acceleration is is your percent error. All the negative means in that case is that the actual acceleration is less than your expieremental. As far as an explaination for your error you need to consider all posibilities that would make you have a higher acceleration and then pick the logical ones. For example, a larger gravitational force would cause a larger acceleration but this is not logical because inorder for the gravitational force to be greater the mass of the earth would have to increase. A good one would be the method used to obtain the time was inaccurate, if you did this by hand then there would be a source of error. Or the device used to measure the lenght of fall would induce error. Then you should also state how you could improve the error, a good way to do this is to increase your expiermental falling distance to negate some timing errors. Hope this helps!

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