How do you use percent-error calculations to find the force of friction?
I don’t like calling “error” the percent difference between theoretical and experimental acceleration. Actually, I don’t like either the words “theoretical” and “experimental” as used in this context, or computing the “error” as a percentage. Maybe your teacher taught you to do so, but I still don’t like it, and I’ll tell you why. What you are doing in this experiment is measuring the friction force, so the force of friction is the RESULT of your measurement. It makes no sense calling an error what is actually your measurement. Also, theoretical acceleration is what you expect to measure according to theory. But you DON’ T EXPECT to measure 0.491 m/s²: you expect to measure LESS than 0.491 m/s², just because you know there is friction and you want to measure it. Now, this is the way I’d like to see it.
