You can create a fit to a set of data values typed into the x and y columns. If using Excel (not the best for scientific graphing) is not your cup of tea and you can't get the graphs from you calculator in a printed form then just use this applet and print the screen. If you are really clever you can capture an image of the screen and paste it into your lab report. Cool? You ain't seen nothin' yet!
Suppose you want to "linearize" your data. Go on, suppose. For example: you have a list of distances a toy car has gone down the ramp and you have an equal number of time values associated with these distances. You surmise from your first raw attempt to chart the data (y~distance, x~time) that the curve is a quadratic. In order to "linearize" the graph and get it to fit a model like: d=1/2 a t2 you need to develop a list of t2 values. You don't actually need to do this with this applet. Simply type x^2 in the first box and the values will automatically be charted as the x coordinate squared. Give it a try.
| Consider this trivial example. Enter these values into the x and y columns respectively. Type x in the first box under the graph and y in the second. After you "plot" the data you should see a typical quadratic. Notice that the line isn't a particularly good fit.
Now type x^2 in the first box. When you plot the data now you should see a straight line. |