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course phy 121
9/12 1:42 pmI didn't notice at first that this was an assignment. I'd been using the Brief assignments page, but found this one on the Table of Assignments, etc.
I basically played around with the Moving Man program.
I did't try every possible combination of position, velocity and acceleration but I did enough to get a sense and get a good visual of object in motion which is helpful considering that graphs are good models but they are static.
I kept the position at 0 since I didn't think changing that variable would tell me a whole lot. The interplay between velocity and acceleration was more important.
Since the position remained constant I will show my results in comma delimited form with Initial Velocity listed first in m/s, followed by acceleration in m/s^2, followed by change in clock time in seconds
0.0, 1.0 4.8
0.0, 5.0, 2.2
00, 10.0, 1.6
5.0, 1.0, 2.0
5.0, 10.0, 1.3
5.0, -1.0, 3.0
Then I started focusing on velocities that would have the man change direction. Again he started at position 0. For this list my results are in comma delimited form with the same information about with one addition: the position in meters when the man changed direction. So my results are in comma delimited form with Initial Velocity listed first in m/s, followed by acceleration in m/s^2, folowed by change in clock time in seconds, followed by position at point of direction change in meters.
5.0, -10.0, 2.3, 1.25
-5.0, 5.0, 3.5, -2.5
5.0, -5.0, 3.5, 2.5
In all the above scenarios, the man changed direction and the clock time was measured from start until he reached either wall. In all cases above he started in the direction of one wall, but ended up at the other.
It was interesting to see the results of the last two trials, I switched the values for velocity and acceleration and got the same time and same absolute value for position at change in direction.
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You did a very well-thought-out investigation.
I'll be interested to see at the end of the course what you think of the value of these simulations, as this is the first time I've used them.
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