Georgia Southern University Laboratory Report in Physics Course/Section: PHYS 2211A/ 1113A Experiment 2 Date: 24 January 2013

Experiment Title: Acceleration of a Freely Falling Body Name: Richard Garrison Partners Names: John Demere and Robert Branch Abstract: Instructors Comments:___________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Instructors Name:_______________________ Grade:________________________

Abstract
Acceleration under the influence of gravity plays a crucial role in physics as it is important to be able to predict and manipulate objects in free fall. In order to measure the acceleration of a freely falling body under the influence of gravity an experiment was set up to calculate it in two different ways. The first being done by dropping a projectile and calculating its acceleration and the second being done by calculating the projectiles velocity, graphing the results, and finding its slope (the slope of the best fit line is acceleration). A timing mechanism was set up to measure the time it took for a steel ball to strike a pressure sensitive timer from varying heights. Acceleration was then calculated by manipulating the following equation. The experiment returned the following results. The experiment would produce an average acceleration rate of 9.78 m/s^2. Although this is not the accepted value of acceleration the slope of the graph which displays the results confirm that 9.8 m/s^2 is in fact an accurate value. The standard deviation for the experimental acceleration values was 0.12, while the percent error was 0.20%.

Data
Table 1. Determining Acceleration Trails 1 2 3 4 5 Time (seconds) 0.38 s 0.44 s 0.32 s 0.32 s 0.41 s Acceleration (m/s^2) 13.85 10.33 19.53 19.53 11.89

Distance the Ball Fell = _____________1.00____________m Average Acceleration = ______________15.03______________m/s^2 Table 2. Velocity/Time Relations Trials 1 2 3 4 5 Time (seconds) 0.38 0.28 0.25 0.25 0.18 Distance (m) 1.00 0.85 0.70 0.55 0.40 Vfinal (m/s) 5.26 6.07 5.60 4.40 4.44

6 7

0.15 0.12

0.25 0.10

3.34 1.67

Calculations
Acceleration can be calculated by rearranging the following equation.

Since yo and vo are zero according to the experiment the following calculation can be used to determine acceleration from the data previously gathered. , and therefore Computing values to be entered in Table 1 gives us, Trial 1 .

Trial 2

Trial 3

Trial 4

Trial 5

Solving for the average acceleration gives us,

Calculating for standard deviation gives us,

Computing for percent error gives us,

Computing values to be entered in Table 2 gives us, Trial 1

Trial 2

Trial 3

Trial 4

Trial 5

Trial 6

Trial 7

Based on the slope of the Vfinal vs Time Graph, the percent error is as follows,

Questions
1. What is the significance of the slope and y intercept of Vfinal vs Time graph? Give values of both. After making a graph of my results a plotting a best fit trendline I was able to determine the slope to be 9.8011. This is significant because the accepted acceleration rate of any object near Earth under the influence of gravity is 9.8 m/s^2. It is also significant because the equation for acceleration is

The slope is acceleration because a slope is

. The y intercept of the graph is -0.0056. I suspect

that this is actually the initial velocity, but it is so negligible that it can be assumed that the initial velocity is 0. 2. Are the graphs linear, parabolic, or hyperbolic? (a) Vfinal vs Time (b) Distance vs Time Both graphs appear to be of linear behavior as the graphs represent equations for a constant acceleration body.

Exercise
On the surface of the moon the acceleration due to gravity is about 1/6 the value on the Earth. An object weighing 12 N weighs how much on the moon? The commonly accepted rate of acceleration on Earth is 9.8 m/s^2 so converting a 12N object to the moons possible rate would be given in the following calculations

is the acceleration due to gravity on the moon. Keep in mind that the object has a mass of 1.22kg found by manipulating the equation F=ma ( the moon the object weighs . ). Therefore on

Conclusion
By conducting the experiment I calculated that the average acceleration rate due to gravity was actually 9.78 m/s^2 as compared to the accepted value of 9.8 m/s^2. Although possible error in the experimental value is attributed to faults within the timing mechanism, it should be noted that the slope of the Vfinal vs Time graph is actually 9.8011 m/s^2. This concludes that although there is slight error in the results, they are still precise enough to prove that acceleration due to gravity is closer to the accepted value. The standard deviation for the experimental acceleration values was 0.12, while the percent error was 0.20%. The percent error for the slope of the Vfinal vs Time Graph was only 0.01%

Graphs

Vfinal vs Time
5 4.5 4 3.5 Vfinal (m/s) 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Time (seconds)

y = 9.8011x - 0.0566 R = 0.9979

Trials Linear (Trials)

Distance vs Time
1.2 1 0.8 Distance (meters) 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Time (seconds) y = 2.9253x - 0.3927 R = 0.9728

Trials Linear (Trials)