9/16 Littig

In 2nd Period Honors Physics class on Friday, Sep. 16, class began by everyone taking their seats and then being told to continue their work with their teams on the “Kinematics Discovery Lab.” All work with the tracks should have been completed on Friday.  The lab in its entirety is due on Monday, September 19, 2011 no later than the beginning of class.  If one was absent, they must be sure to read the directions on the lab carefully so that all graphs are plotted correctly.  Remember, zig-zag lines between points are not appropriate.  There was not much new material learned during class, as the entire period was focused on lab work.  A surprising occurrence during class was when a reading on a timer was read backwards, therefore, an assumption was made that a metal ball rolling down a steeply inclined track can “defy gravity” and not accelerate on an incline.

Work due on Friday: None

Homework Assigned Friday, Due Monday:  

2.1-2.2 Guided Reading (be sure to take your textbook home)

Question of the Day:  

If the motion of two objects is plotted on a graph of distance vs. time, how can you tell from looking at the graph which motion was uniform and which object was traveling faster?

Answer:

If the motion of two different objects were plotted on a graph of distance vs. time, one could tell which object had the greater speed by determining the which line had the greater slope.  This is true because the higher slope means that more distance is being traveled in a lesser amount of time, thus that object was traveling faster.  Uniform motion can also be determined by a line on a graph.  The graph is linear if there is uniform motion, as that shows consistent, uniform motion at a specific ration of distance/time.