Final answer:
To describe the distribution of car speeds, calculate statistical measures and create visual graphs like histograms. The 'Getting a Sense of Speed' exercise involves unit conversions between mph and m/s and calculating and converting average speeds based on observed data.
Step-by-step explanation:
To assist in describing and displaying the distribution of car speeds recorded by John Beale, one would typically use statistical tools and graphical representations. In summarizing these speeds, we'd calculate measures such as the mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation.
Additionally, to visually represent the data, we might create a histogram or box plot. Since the speed limit is 20 mph and we're assuming the data will show some level of noncompliance, the shape of this distribution may skew right, with a tail extending towards higher speeds.
This is because we might expect most drivers to adhere to the speed limit, with fewer drivers exceeding it, especially by large margins.
In the Getting a Sense of Speed investigation, converting speeds between miles per hour and meters per second is an exercise in unit conversion, which will help to better understand the values in different measurement systems.
In this exploration, the average speed calculation for cars is simply the total distance traveled divided by the total time taken, which is then converted into kilometers per hour for a more global reference.
To answer question (c) regarding the average time and average speed, the student would sum up the times taken by each of the 20 cars to travel the measured 50-meter distance and divide by 20 to find the average time.
Then, the average speed in meters per second can be obtained by dividing 50 meters by the average time. To convert this to kilometers per hour, we would multiply by 3.6 (since 1 m/s equals 3.6 km/h).