Question

A cart moves along a track at a velocity of 3.5 cm/s. when a force is applied to the cart, its velocity increases to 8.2 cm/s. if it takes the cart 1.5 seconds to reach 8.2 cm/s, what is the acceleration of the cart? round your answer to the nearest tenth.

Answer 1

Acceleration, in physics, is the rate of change of velocity of an object with respect to time.  Anytime an object's velocity is changing, the object is said to be accelerating. It can be calculated as follows:

acceleration = 8.2 - 3.5 / 1.5 = 3.1 m/s²

Hope this answers the question.

Answer 2

By definition, we have to:

$vf = a * t + vo$

Where,

vf: final speed

a: acceleration

t: time

vo: initial speed

From here, we clear the value of acceleration.

We have then:

$a = \frac{vf-vo}{t}$

Then, replacing values we have:

$a = \frac{8.2-3.5}{1.5}$

Rounding to the nearest tenth we have:

$a = 3.1 \frac{cm}{s^2}$

Answer:

the acceleration of the cart is:

$a = 3.1 \frac{cm}{s^2}$