Students are using the experimental setup on a desk in which the two ends of a string are attached to a car and to a hanger. The students conduct three trials in which they place metal discs on the hanger to manipulate the force applied to the car. As a result, the car accelerates along the table while two probes collect motion data.
On the fourth trial of this experiment, a student places some discs on the car by mistake. In 2 sentences, explain how this would change the acceleration or velocity?
1 answer
Placing discs on the car during the fourth trial would increase the mass of the car, which would result in a decrease in the car's acceleration and potentially its overall velocity, assuming all other factors remain constant.