In the lab room, you are sitting in an office chair with wheels while holding onto a force sensor, and the chair is at rest. One end of a lightweight string is attached to the force sensor, and your lab partner is holding the other end of the string. Your lab partner then moves away from you, pulling on the string. Describe how your lab partner must move for the force sensor to read a constant force. Explain

a circular motion a constant force can be measured

Explanation:

The force is expressed by the relation

         F = m a

The bold are vectros.

Therefore, when your partner moves away, he has a reading of a force, so that this force remains constant there must be an acceleration at all times, one way to achieve these is with a circular motion with constant speed, in this case the module of the velocity is constant, but the direction changes at each point and there is an acceleration at each point.

Consequently with a circular motion a constant force can be measured

see the picture for the vector

the magnitude of the vector by pythagorean theorem

r = √( (-10)^2 + (3)^2 ) = √109

magnitude = √109 units

the direction angle between vector and x-axis is

tan^(-1)(3/10) = 16.699

so the direction is approximately 16.7 degrees north of west