Question

A group of students performing Newton's Second Law experiment generated the graph shown below from their data. Which of the following statements is true regardingthe trustworthiness of the data? (Select all that apply.)

Friction would cause the plot to be shifted upward such that the y-intercept is positive. Therefore thenegative y-intercept indicates incorrect data.The track was not level and the cart went downhill during the experiment, causing the cart to accelerate in theforward direction even when the hanging mass was zero.The negative y-intercept indicates the amount of friction force present.The plot of the data crosses the x-axis at a positive value of the acceleration. This means that when thehanging mass is zero, the cart still has some acceleration, which seems contrary to Newton's second law.The graph should have a positive y-intercept because a certain amount of mass is needed on the hanger toovercome the friction and create a net force in the forward direction.The graph crossing the x-axis at some positive value of the acceleration indicates the presence of anon-zero acceleration, which is in agreement with Newton's second law.

Answer 1

Statements 1, 2, and 4 are true.
3 is false because any increase (small) in mass would result in
a positive acceleration with negative mass
5 is false for the same reason - zero mass would be producing
a positive acceleration