DISCUSSION
1. What are the physical principles being investigated in this lab?
The objective of this experiment was to determine the acceleration of a falling object by recording precise timed sparks on a piece of heat-sensitive tape.
2. Describe the shape of the plot (straight, curved) for each graph and say what this tells you about the relationship between the variables.
Position vs. Time graph Prior to plotting the points into the graph, we subtracted the distance from each dot from the total distance of the next dot, in order to get the interval distance between the dots. Once we plotted all the data, the resulting graph was curved upwards. This meant that the slope of the position vs. time graph was becoming steeper over time as the …show more content…
time graph and calculating the slope of the graph. By definition, acceleration represents change in velocity over time. Therefore, in order to find the acceleration of the fallen object, we calculated the slope. Mathematically, the slope of velocity vs. time graph is the change in velocity by the change in time, which represents the acceleration. The actual acceleration of a fallen object is 9.80 m/s2. Therefore our percent error was [(980 cm/s2 – 972 cm/s2)/ 980 cm/s2] x 100% = 0.82% error.
4. Make a complete list of all the sources of measurement error that limit the accuracy of the results.
Possible sources of errors include:
1) Parallax. While using the ruler or the protractor, which causes a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.
2) Small sizes of millimeter marking on the measuring stick are not easy to read.
3) Friction impeding the falling object
4) Using a spirit level to level the falling object to ensure it’s straight before falling
5) The falling object hitting the apparatus while falling, or not falling straight down
6) The tape not reading the fallen object, “no dots”
7) Inadvertently ignore air resistance when measuring free-fall acceleration
8) The tape not being tight enough
9) Cooper wire loose
10) Uneven
1. What are the physical principles being investigated in this lab?
The objective of this experiment was to determine the acceleration of a falling object by recording precise timed sparks on a piece of heat-sensitive tape.
2. Describe the shape of the plot (straight, curved) for each graph and say what this tells you about the relationship between the variables.
Position vs. Time graph Prior to plotting the points into the graph, we subtracted the distance from each dot from the total distance of the next dot, in order to get the interval distance between the dots. Once we plotted all the data, the resulting graph was curved upwards. This meant that the slope of the position vs. time graph was becoming steeper over time as the …show more content…
time graph and calculating the slope of the graph. By definition, acceleration represents change in velocity over time. Therefore, in order to find the acceleration of the fallen object, we calculated the slope. Mathematically, the slope of velocity vs. time graph is the change in velocity by the change in time, which represents the acceleration. The actual acceleration of a fallen object is 9.80 m/s2. Therefore our percent error was [(980 cm/s2 – 972 cm/s2)/ 980 cm/s2] x 100% = 0.82% error.
4. Make a complete list of all the sources of measurement error that limit the accuracy of the results.
Possible sources of errors include:
1) Parallax. While using the ruler or the protractor, which causes a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.
2) Small sizes of millimeter marking on the measuring stick are not easy to read.
3) Friction impeding the falling object
4) Using a spirit level to level the falling object to ensure it’s straight before falling
5) The falling object hitting the apparatus while falling, or not falling straight down
6) The tape not reading the fallen object, “no dots”
7) Inadvertently ignore air resistance when measuring free-fall acceleration
8) The tape not being tight enough
9) Cooper wire loose
10) Uneven