Homework - Mechanics

Free fall analysed with multiflash photographs

This worksheet uses data to calculate the acceleration due to gravity, g.

1 A multiflash photograph of a golf ball falling next to

a mounted centimetre scale was taken, with images of
the ball being recorded twenty times each second, as
shown in Figure 1. The positions of the ten
successive images of the ball shown in Figure 1 are
given in Table 1.

Image number Scale reading / cm

1 12

2 21

3 32

4 45

5 61

6 80

7 100

8 124

9 149

10 178

Table 1

Figure 1

a From the data in Table 1, draw a distance–time table for the free fall, setting distance s = 0
and time t = 0 at image 1. [2]

b Use your distance–time table to plot a distance–time graph for the falling ball. [4]

c By drawing tangents to the curve at the points corresponding to images 3 and 8, find the speed
of the falling golf ball at those two times. [4]

d Use your answer to 1c to calculate the acceleration due to gravity, and account for any
difference between your value and the expected 9.8 m s −2. [3]

1
2 Figure 2 shows a multiflash picture of a ball thrown upwards at an angle. The ball was thrown in
the direction shown by the arrow in front of a board marked with a grid of lines separated by 5 cm.
As in question 1, the images of the ball were recorded twenty times each second.

Figure 2

a Explain how Figure 2 shows that the horizontal component of velocity ux is constant. [1]

b Use information from Figure 2 to calculate ux. [2]

c Apply the equations of motion to information from Figure 2 to find the vertical component uy
of the initial velocity of the ball (position 1). You can assume that g = 9.8 m s−2. [4]

3.

[2]

2
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