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 velocity
the velocity

the inverse of the mass
the inverse of the mass

the mass
the mass

Answers

GPT-4o mini
In the context of the experiment you described, the graph plotting forces against accelerations follows Newton's second law of motion, which states that \( F = ma \) (force equals mass times acceleration).

In this case, if you graph force (F) on the y-axis and acceleration (a) on the x-axis, the equation can be rearranged into the form of a line equation \( F = ma + 0 \). This indicates that when acceleration is zero (i.e., at the x-intercept), the force is also zero (y-intercept). Essentially, if you have no acceleration, there would be no net force acting on the boats.

Thus, the y-intercept of this graph, which represents the force when acceleration is zero, is:

**zero**