Q4. IDEAS & ACTIVITIES

PLEASE CHECK OUT THIS ACTIVITY BEFORE YOU CONTINUE.:

The answer to the question in the above activity is:

Josh is correct. Inertia is that quantity which depends solely upon mass.
The more mass, the more inertia. Momentum is another quantity in Physics
which depends on both mass and speed. Momentum will be discussed later.

In this experiment, we test to see if the weight of a car affects the distance that the car will travel when it rolls down a slope.

This experiment requires a smooth level surface and not much else.

You could try something similar. Record your results and explain why you think these results are important and why you think they happened?

Our hypothesis is that the weight will NOT affect the distance travelled.

This experiment was done using the following materials:

• A smooth ramp (a cover from a tablet)
• A pencil (placed under the ramp to vary the slope)
• One or more toy cars ($5 - a set of 5 x 1/64 scale model cars from Target)
• A large marble ($2 - a set of mixed size marbles from Red Dollar store)
• A smooth, level surface to run cars over (a smooth wooden coffee table top)
• Run each test several times, to make sure that you find the average distance travelled.

The car weighed approximately 15g and the marble approximately eight times heavier (120g). The actual weights don't matter but best if the added weight is at least two or three times the weight of the car so that any effect is noticeable.

• IF UNABLE TO ACCESS YOUTUBE VIDEO (requires Flash) TRY:Toy car weight, distance & acceleration

• Inertia and Mass
• Potential Energy