The release of the ball triggers a camera to photograph the ball at each flash. Thus holding the ball up for a very short amount of time, not enough to visually notice but perhaps enough to make a difference and cause a slight error.Īnother method for the experiment that would prevent some of these errors occurring is to use a multiflash photograph, which involves the use of a stroboscope. This is lost gradually over a very short period of time. When the power is cut off to the electromagnet, a small amount of magnetism is retained. One theory that could explain the differences in the results is retained magnetism. If however, air resistance was occurring, a slightly different sized ball could used to repeat the experiment and see if it makes a difference. The fact that it is not due to the measurement makes you question why this has happened.Īir resistance could be a factor, but again, you would imagine the air resistance to be the same as the same ball is used for each reading. You would imagine that the readings for one height would be the same, yet this only happened once, all the other readings were different. It may be worth doing an extra reading for each height to try and gain an even better average time. One way to avoid this error could be to measure the distance between the electromagnet and the trapdoor and then subtract the diameter of the ball (which could have been measured before hand). Inaccurate results seemed to occur at the top of my graph where the distances were greater perhaps this shows a relationship between distance and accuracy of measurements.ĭue to the curved surface of the ball it hard to see where the ball coincides with the ruler, even with the aid of a set square, and this could cause the distance measured to be greater or smaller than it actually is. One error which comes to mind to make the acceleration seem faster or slower is the measurement of the distance. There are theories that could explain the reasons why errors have occurred in the experiment. Plotting a line of worst fit against the line of best fit, and working out the difference between the two results for the acceleration of gravity would give the result a ?error. Answer (1 of 6): Perhaps your teacher meant 5 sources of uncertainty in your results If so, there could be a reading and calibration uncertainty in the scale you used to measure your masses, along with any ruler, timing device etc. It would have been more expected for the ball to travel slower. I think my result is good, however the fact that my result is aboveĩ.81 ms( means the ball was travelling faster than the usual acceleration of gravity, which is quite strange. A graph is easier to understand and make sense of results. Instantaneously the line of best fit can reveal results that are inaccurate. The use of a graph with a line of best fit enables you to see relationships between the results, constants, and the possibility of predicting the behaviour of results, showing new values. The process of finding this value was made easier by converting the results into a graph, where the advantages outweigh those of calculating each set of results, one being time consumption. The textbook value is 9.81ms( and I obtained 9.825ms(, which is very close. The acceleration of gravity can be obtained by multiplying the gradient by 2.Ī line of best fit was plotted on the graph, which made it possible to calculate the gradient.įrom my findings it appears that the experiment has proven to be quite accurate in determining a result for the acceleration of gravity in free fall. The gradient of the graph is found by dividing displacement by time and represents ( g. This can be compared to the equation of a straight line graph, y = m x c. \) rather than a rough estimate.The equation has been modified to now give Determinations of the acceleration due to the grav- itational attraction of the earth have been made many times since the early observations of Galileo.
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