Hi, my name is John Hayward, and I want to welcome you to my Physics web page done in Mr. Young’s room. Let me tell you a little about me. I am a student at Fayetteville High School in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I have lived in Fayetteville all my life (that is 16 years) too bad to say I haven’t been doing Physics that long. I love cars and will do just about anything that has to do with them. So this page is going to be about the ways Physics is involved with cars, using distance, time, velocity, and SPEED!

Using Cars To Learn Physics:

The most common used formula for cars in motion is (y=ax+b), a linear formula. The (a) stands for the slope of a line on a graph; in this case it is the constant velocity of a car (meters per second). The (x) is the horizontal axis on a graph, as the (y) is the vertical axis, and the (b) states how far the car goes or how close it gets if started at a further point.

One example that describes this formula is a car moving toward an object at a constant velocity of .5 m/s, starting from 5 meters away. The formula for this would be, y=-.5x+5. The negative is used because the car is moving towards the object making it a negative velocity.

In order to find the velocity of this car data is needed, but it will most likely be given to you in a chart form, for example:

Time (seconds)	Distance (meters)
0	5
1	4.5
2	4
3	3.5
4	3
5	2.5
6	2
7	1.5
8	1
9	.5
10	0

After the data is found, then it is time for the formula. The formula for this data is listed below.

You can figure out the formula by looking at the plot graph made by the data, the graph is shown below.

On the y-axis the distance is shown in meters, 1 dash = .5 meters. On the x-axis (horizontal) the time is shown, 1 dash = 1 second. Now, as the car travels every .5 meters, one second goes by. That is what gives you the formula. The formula for this data is listed below.

After the formula is found then the graph ends up looking like this:

And the graph tells you how long it took the car to move five meters, and what the constant velocity is.

There is another formula used that is not linear and has to do with acceleration, wich that is y=a(x-b)^2. The letters stand for the same thing as in the first formula. Lets say a car is at the top of a ramp going down it starting at 0 m/s and accelerating to 2 m/s; with the data showing:

Time (seconds)	Distance (meters)
0	0
1	.2
2	1
3	2
4	4
5	6
6	7.8

Then the plotted graph ends up looking like this:

and after putting in the formula that closest fits the line, which is:

The graph ends up looking like this:

Try this PROBLEM!:

Question: Give the equastion, graph, and state an event that would produce the patern of the graph you made using this data:

Time (seconds)	Distance (meters)
0	0
1	.4
2	.8
3	1.2
4	1.6
5	2
6	2.4

Answer: Event: A car moving at a constant velocity of ,40 m/s, that started 0 meters away from a CBR.

Equation: y=ax+b – y=.4x+0

Graph:

Now, to get the graph you have to enter the data chart into the chart on your calculator. Remember the left collum is (x), time; and the right collum is (y), distance. Then enter the equation into the y= chart then press graph, and you should come up with the same graph as me.