A student group tests the part of Coulomb's Law that states that the force between two particles is

proportional to the product of the particles' electric charges.

Using an updated version of the VR lab at the UW, the students measure the force between two identical particles, F, separated by distance, r, for several different values of charge, Q.

In this experiment, the variable that must be controlled is Q .

The students make a graph, and they linearize their data. They plot the independent variable [ Select ] ["Q^2", "Q", "F", "F^2", "r", "r^2"] on the horizontal axis and the dependent variable [ Select ] ["F", "F^2", "Q", "Q^2", "r", "r^2"] on the vertical axis.

In order to determine whether their data supports the model, the students draw a line of best fit, and check to see if this criterion is met: The line passes through at least 2/3 of the uncertainty ranges.