let's try this again?

Question

within the precisions of a high school lab, do these data points at least somewhat support the relation that v^2 is proportional to Fc

from the equation v^2=Fc*r/m

Fc=.49 V=4.4 m/s
.98, 6.1
1.5, 7.1
2.0, 8.0

I see the Fc go up about .5 each time and with one exception, the velocity going up 1 each time....I just need help seeing how these points relate to the relationship v^2 is proportional to Fc

Answer 1

Do you have some kind of spreadsheet or graphing software? A really nice way to see whether the relation exists is to plot the data points. You can make a spread sheet with Fc in one column and v in a second column. Then make a 3rd column for v^2. If you then ask the spreadsheet to plot Fc versus v^2 for you, the resulting graph should be a straight line if they are proportional. If you use Excel, make sure you choose a scatter plot *not* a line graph. Excel will even put in a trendline for linear regression and give you the equation of the line.

If you don't have graphing software, you can do the same thing by hand. Get some graph paper. Calculate v^2 for each of your data points and then plot them. If you end up with a reasonably straight line, then they proportional to each other.

Regardless, don't look at the change in velocity each time. You need to instead look at the change in v^2 each time because you are asking if it's proportional to v^2, not v.