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Lab Report Newton 2nd Law

The document describes a physics experiment to explore the relationship between force and acceleration using Newton's second law. The experiment uses an air track to study the acceleration of a car and hanging mass. The results show the acceleration is directly proportional to force, supporting Newton's law, though there is a small percentage error attributed to experimental errors.

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william sun
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36 views

Lab Report Newton 2nd Law

The document describes a physics experiment to explore the relationship between force and acceleration using Newton's second law. The experiment uses an air track to study the acceleration of a car and hanging mass. The results show the acceleration is directly proportional to force, supporting Newton's law, though there is a small percentage error attributed to experimental errors.

Uploaded by

william sun
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PHYSICS IA LAB REPORT

Title - By using Newton’s 2nd Law to determine the relationship between F and a

Objective
In our experiment, our aim is to explore the Relationship between the Force exerted
on the object and the acceleration by observing the dynamics of a car and a hanging
mass on a almost frictionless horizontal air-track. Our goal is to investigate the
correlation between external force and acceleration. We'll start by calculating the
theoretical acceleration for both the car and the hanging mass, assuming no friction
and applying F = ma, by using Logger Pro software, to empirically examine the
force-acceleration relationship.

Theor y

a) Acceler ation using Newton’s 2nd Law

Appar atus Setup

V1 Photogates V2

Airtrack

M2

Fr ee-Body Diagr am

N T

M1 T

M 1g

M2G

1
Data

Calculations
Theoretically Acceleration is supposed to be:

atheo = (Force downward) /(Car Mass+Mass added)

in this case, it is equal to X4/(X2/1000+X3/1000) X is the group

Experimental Acceleration:
By using the light gates, the time, velocity can be determined by light gate(do not need
to use SUVAT technique anymore)

4
Conclusion
1. The slight discrepancy, with a 3.313% error, shows the experiment's
success in demonstrating the direct proportionality between force (F) and
acceleration (a), as depicted by a nearly perfect straight line on our data
graph. This supports our objective of illustrating the fundamental principle
that acceleration is proportional to the applied net force.

2. Based on the relative small percentage error of 3.313%, the summary is


that the objective of finding the relationship between a and F is done and a is
proportional to F.(data line is appropriately a straight line)

3.systematic error involved due to measuring devices, and random errors are
also involved in the experiment because of the unperfect of us:

a) First, Not releasing the car from same starting point every run.(Very hard
to control by hand, a clip would work better)

b) Balancing the air track proved really challenging. An unbalanced track


could be subject to additional forces from the air pump, either pushing the
car forward or pulling it back.

c) The behavior of the hanging mass (including the basket and iron blocks)
was another source of error. Ideally, it should fall straight down, but we
observed that it sometimes followed a curved trajectory, deviating from the
expected straight-line descent.Hence, the uncertainty in the acceleration
results was influenced by random errors. These same random errors were
responsible for a 3.133% discrepancy observed in our final findings.

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