Question

Several motorboats with the same mass are used in an experiment. The forces of the different motors versus their accelerations are graphed. What is the y-intercept of this graph? (1 point)
Responses

zero
zero

the inverse of the mass
the inverse of the mass

the velocity
the velocity

the mass

Answer 1

In the context of the experiment where motorboats' forces are graphed against their accelerations, we can apply Newton's second law of motion, which relates force (F), mass (m), and acceleration (a) with the equation:

\[ F = m \cdot a \]

Rearranging this equation to express force in terms of acceleration gives:

\[ a = \frac{F}{m} \]

This implies that if you graph the force (F) on the y-axis and acceleration (a) on the x-axis, the equation can also be expressed in the form of a linear equation:

\[ F = m \cdot a \]

Here, the slope of the line is the mass (m) of the motorboats. For this linear equation, the y-intercept is the value of F when a = 0.

Since there are no additional forces acting on the motorboats when they are at rest (meaning \( F \) would equal zero when there is no acceleration), the y-intercept of the graph of the forces versus their accelerations is:

**zero**.