course

Subject: conservation of energy on an incline

What type(s) of equation(s) would be used to determine the

acceleration of an object up and down an incline?

Also, should the speed of the object in question always be

faster on its way back down the incline? I suspect it

should, but when measuring speed using the Timer program, the

object travels slower as it rolls back down the ramp.

The answer to your first question depends on what information you have. Given sufficient information you should be able to either reason out the acceleration using the definitions, or if necessary use the equations of motion.

In the experiment you mention you presumably know either v0 or vf (depending on the direction of the roll one will be 0), you know `ds (which you have measured) and also `dt (also measured). In this case, assuming constant acceleration you can reason out vAve then the definition of vAve to figure out either v0 or vf, whichever you don't know. Having that additional information you can find the acceleration using the definition of acceleration. Alternatively you could use the first equation of motion to find vf or v0 then use the second equation to find acceleration.