Can't seem to get the correct acceleration

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SUMMARY

The discussion centers on calculating acceleration from a position vs. time graph for a free-falling object. The user calculated velocities of 390 cm/sec and 486 cm/sec, resulting in an acceleration of 6,400 cm/sec², which is significantly higher than the expected 9.80 m/s². The discrepancy arises from the incorrect time interval used in the calculations; the user initially used 0.9 seconds instead of the correct 0.1 seconds. The importance of accurately reading the graph scale is emphasized to ensure correct calculations.

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  • Familiarity with interpreting position vs. time graphs.
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From a position vs. time graph I calculated the slope of 2 tangent lines which is the velocity. The first slope was 390 cm/sec and the second slope was 486 cm/sec. Now to get the acceleration I thought I take difference of the velocities divided by the time interval 0.9 (1/60 sec) or 0.015sec. After calculations I got an acceleration of 6,400 cm/sec^2 which would be 64m/s^2. The only thing is that the acceleration should be close to 9.80m/s^2 because it was a free falling object and I need to find percent error. What am I doing wrong because I should be getting around 9.80m/s^2 and not such a large number like 64.
 
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It might help if you could post the graph you're working from. From working out the difference of the slopes one gets an answer of 96 which would get you a reasonable answer if the time interval was 0.1s. Are you sure you're reading the graph scale correctly?
 

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