Today we were split into eight groups, each with individual carts, weights and ticker tapes. The purpose of the experiment was to prove Newton's classic second law F = m * a.
The ticker tape would be attached to the cart, which would be attached by string to the weights. As the weights fell, it would drag the cart along through a pulley. The ticker tape would then track the acceleration of the moving cart.
There were two cases, acceleration vs force--mass staying constant--, and acceleration vs mass--force staying constant.CASE 1
Our results for case one proved as was expected. The more mass added to the force, the faster the cart would move down the table, and the faster the acceleration would be. Our resulting accelerations displayed this with an increasing trend. Mass Acceleration
1 0.259 m/s^2
2 1.07 m/s^2
3 2.92 m/s^2
CASE 2
Our results for the second case were slightly off the predicted pattern. Logically, if the force remains constant, the lighter the mass the greater the acceleration. However, due to possible experimental error, our results showed that there was a parabolic trend with a low acceleration for 2 weights, a vastly higher acceleration for 1 weight, and a much lower acceleration for zero weights.
Mass Acceleration
2 0.259 m/s^2
1 2.01 m/s^2
0 0.624 m/s^2
In conclusion, the entire lab went overly well, but due to experimental error--possibly ticker tape malfunction--on the second part, there were misconstrued data. Despite all this, the data proves that Newton's Second Law correct.
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