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Graphing question - NOT part of homework

 
 
Picture of Jyoti Mujumdar
Graphing question - NOT part of homework
by Jyoti Mujumdar - Tuesday, July 28, 2020, 5:10 PM
 

Hello,

I was doing some general math practice online and I came across two questions that I wasn't sure how to answer. This isn't part of the homework for any of the Areteem Institute classes - I found this somewhere on the web. I searched on the web, but to no avail. Can someone please help me with these questions?


Linearize the following data sets:

1. Mass (kg)       Velocity (m/s)

         1.0                        22.4

         2.0                        19.6

         3.0                        16.5

         4.0                        13.3

         5.0                        10.4

         6.0                         7.7

         7.0                         4.6

         8.0                         1.1


2. Time (s)          Velocity (m/s)

         0.0                         0.0

         2.0                       10.5

         4.0                       14.0

         6.0                       18.0

         8.0                       21.0

        10.0                     23.5

        12.0                     26.0

        14.0                     28.0


Thanks!

 
Picture of Dr. Kevin Wang
Re: Graphing question - NOT part of homework
by Dr. Kevin Wang - Wednesday, August 5, 2020, 11:35 PM
 

In this case, "linearize" means to find a straight line that best fit the given data.  You can plot the data on graph paper and eyeball a line that's close to the points (one of the methods is to pick two points and draw a line through them, but it may lead to very bad approximations).  Then the meaning of "best fit" and "close to the points" should be specified quantitatively.  I think the website you got the problem from should have certain criteria.  If they don't have it, then you can try searching for "least square regression" as one of the possible ways.