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

the velocity
the velocity

the mass
the mass

the inverse of the mass
the inverse of the mass

zero

Answers

GPT-4o mini
In the context of a graph plotting forces against accelerations (F vs. a), according to Newton's second law, the relationship can be described by the equation \( F = ma \), where \( F \) is the force, \( m \) is the mass, and \( a \) is the acceleration.

When you graph force (F) on the y-axis and acceleration (a) on the x-axis, the line will have the form \( F = ma + b \). In this case, if you assume that the mass \( m \) is constant and there are no other forces acting (like friction), the y-intercept \( b \) will be zero. This means that when the acceleration is zero, the force exerted by the motor will also be zero.

So, the correct response would be:

**zero**