3 September 2014: Non-Constant Acceleration

Purpose: To solve a problem with a non constant acceleration

For this we used only Microsoft Excel 

      As a class, along with the Professor Wolf, we solved this problem. Following the steps on the

handout and those told to us by the professor.


      Based off the original instructions my group and I found the time, acceleration, the average

acceleration, the change in velocity, the velocity and the distance for the elephant. The first 35 points

are shown below when the interval of time is 0.1 seconds. Thanks to Excel the numbers and

calculations were easy to numerically integrate.

      Below is when the elephant's v=0 at some time in between 19.1 and 19.2 seconds in that time 

the elephant traveled about 243.8 meters. The time 19.1 and 19.2 seconds are highlighted.

    

 Here is how the problem is solved analytically. (From top to bottom). 

     

    

     When the time interval is 1s instead of 0.1s where v=0 at some time in between 19 and 20s 

these two times are highlighted creating a higher margin of uncertainty.

     When the time interval is 0.5 seconds instead of 0.1 seconds where v=0m/s at some time between 

19 and 19.5 seconds these two times are highlighted creating a higher margin of uncertainty than 

when the time interval is 0.1 seconds but less than when the time interval is 1 second.

Summary

     We solved a problem containing a non-constant acceleration as a class. Finding how long it would 

take to slow down an elephant on roller skates and how far that elephant went. The time when 

v=0m/s was 19.69 seconds and the distance was about 244 m numerically and I got 248.7 m 

analytically.

Conclusion

     Numerically I miss calculated at some point on the Excel sheet that I was uncertain how to fix as 

the analytically the math is correct. The time interval becomes small enough when there is a change 

of less than 1% as it fits into a three significant figures.