Re: Moment of inertia - plot relevance/interpretation

[DanielPohl]

As with most of the plots we do in 106, what we are doing is graphically representing a relationship between two variables. It is vitally important that you READ the theory section to understand what we are doing in this lab (and the other labs!). If you look in the lab theory section they derive equations for the situation we are replicating in the experiment and show how, in equation form, time is related to mass (Equation 6). Does the form of this equation remind you of anything? (HINT: y=mx+b). Because the form of Equation 6 is the same as y=mx+b, it stands to reason that a graph would allow us to extract information about the other variables in that equation the same way that we got information from all the other graphs in phys106: from the slope and y-intercept.

In regards to the first plot you have to do, we are trying to show that angular acceleration is constant by plotting angular displacement against t^2. Again, it would be instructive to look up the relationship between angular displacement and angular acceleration to understand why making the plot they suggest makes sense.

[11cnc]

Hello! I am confused about the plots required for the lab. I don't understand how we are to obtain the values from the plots. How do we do it? Are there equations we should look at in dealing with the plots? This lab, for me, seems really vague on what we are to do with the data obtained.