Lab Manual 1

Lab Manual for Physics 221
Benjamin Crowell
Fullerton College
www.lightandmatter.com
Copyright (c) 1999-2008 by B. Crowell. This lab manual is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike license, version 1.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/. If you agree to
the license, it grants you certain privileges that you would not otherwise have, such as the right to copy the
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also copy this book under the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.2, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt,
with no invariant sections, no front-cover texts, and no back-cover texts.
2
Contents
1 Conservation Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2 Conservation of Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4 Absolute Zero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
5 Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6 Conservation of Momentum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
7 Newton’s Second Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
8 Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
9 Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
10 The Force Vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
11 The Momentum Vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
12 Torque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
13 The Moment of Inertia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
14 Torque in Three Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Appendix 3: Propagation of Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Appendix 4: Graphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Appendix 6: Using the Photogate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Contents 3
4 Contents
Contents 5
1 Conservation Laws
Apparatus is a statement that something always remains con-
stant when you add it all up. Most people have a
Part A: vacuum pump (Lapine) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 general intuitive idea that the amount of a substance
electronic balance (large capacity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 is conserved. That objects do not simply appear
plastic-coated flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group or disappear is a conceptual achievement of babies
Part B: beaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group around the age of 9-12 months. Beginning at this
propyl alcohol 200 mL/group age, they will for instance try to retrieve a toy that
canola oil 200 mL/group they have seen being placed under a blanket, rather
funnels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group than just assuming that it no longer exists. Con-
100-mL volumetric flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group servation laws in physics have the following general
rubber stopper, fitting in features:
volumetric flask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
1-ml pipette and bulb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group Physicists trying to find new conservation laws
magnetic stirrer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group will try to find a measurable, numerical quan-
triple-beam balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group tity, so that they can check quantitatively whether
it is conserved. One needs an operational def-
inition of the quantity, meaning a definition
that spells out the operations required to mea-
Goal sure it.
People believe that objects cannot be made to disap- Conservation laws are only true for closed sys-
pear or appear. If you start with a certain amount tems. For instance, the amount of water in a
of matter, there is no way to increase or decrease bottle will remain constant as long as no wa-
that amount. This type of rule is called a conser- ter is poured in or out. But if water can get in
vation law in physics, and this specific law states or out, we say that the bottle is not a closed
that the amount of matter is conserved, i.e., must system, and conservation of matter cannot be
stay the same. In order to make this law scientifi- applied to it.
cally useful, we must define more carefully how the
“amount” of a substance is to be defined and mea- The quantity should be additive. For instance,
sured numerically. Specifically, there are two issues the amount of energy contained in two gallons
that scientifically untrained people would probably of gasoline is twice as much as the amount of
not agree on: energy contained in one gallon; energy is addi-
tive. An example of a non-additive quantity is
temperature. Two cups of coffee do not have
Should air count as matter? If it has weight, twice as high a temperature as one cup.
then it probably should count. In this lab, you
will find out if air has weight, and, if so, mea- Conservation laws always refer to the total amount
sure its density. of the quantity when you add it all up. If you
add it all up at one point in time, and then
Should the amount of a substance be defined in come back at a later point in time and add it
terms of volume, or is mass more appropriate? all up, it will be the same.
In this lab, you will determine whether mass
and/or volume is conserved when water and How can we pin down more accurately the concept
alcohol are mixed. of the “amount of a substance”? Should a gallon
of shaving cream be considered “more substantial”
than a brick? At least two possible quantities come
Introduction to mind: mass and volume. Is either conserved?
Both? Neither? To find out, we will have to make
Styles in physics come and go, and once-hallowed
measurements.
principles get modified as more accurate data come
along, but some of the most durable features of the We can measure mass by the “see-saw method” —
science are its conservation laws. A conservation law when two children are sitting on the opposite sides
6 Lab 1 Conservation Laws

of a see-saw, the less massive one has to move far- Our situation is similar to the dolphin’s, as was first
ther out from the fulcrum to make it balance. If we appreciated by Torricelli, whose experiments led him
enslave some particular child as our permanent mass to conclude that “we live immersed at the bottom
standard, then any other child’s mass can be mea- of a sea of...air.” A human physicist, living her life
sured by balancing her on the other side and mea- immersed in air, could do a similar experiment to
suring her distance from the fulcrum. A more prac- find out whether air has weight. She could weigh a
tical version of the same basic principle that does container full of air, then pump all the air out and
not involve human rights violations is the familiar weigh it again. When all the matter in a container
pan balance with sliding weights. has been removed, including the air, we say that
there is a vacuum in the container. In reality, a
Volume is not necessarily so easy to measure. For
perfect vacuum is very difficult to create. A small
instance, shaving cream is mostly air, so should we
fraction of the air is likely to remain in the container
find a way to measure just the volume of the bub-
even after it has been pumped on with a vacuum
bly film itself? Precise measurements of volume can
pump. The amount of remaining air will depend
most easily be done with liquids and gases, which
on how good the pump is and on the rate at which
conform to a vessel in which they are placed.
air leaks back in to the container through holes or
Should a gas, such as air, be counted as having any cracks.
substance at all? Empedocles of Acragas (born ca.
492 BC) was the originator of the doctrine that all Cautions
material substances are composed of mixtures of four
elements: earth, fire, water and air. The idea seems
amusingly naive now that we know about the chem- Please do not break the glassware! The vacuum
ical elements and the periodic table, but it was ac- flasks and volumetric flasks are expensive.
cepted in Europe for two thousand years, and the The alcohol you will be using in this lab is chemically
inclusion of air as a material substance was actu- different from the alcohol in alcoholic beverages. It
ally a nontrivial concept. Air, after all, was invis- is poisonous, and can cause blindness or death if you
ible, seemed weightless, and had no definite shape. drink it. It is not hazardous as long as you do not
Empedocles decided air was a form of matter based drink it.
on experimental evidence: air could be trapped un-
der water in an inverted cup, and bubbles would be
released if the cup was tilted. It is interesting to Observations
note that in China around 300 BC, Zou Yan came
up with a similar theory, and his five elements did The following important rules serve to keep facts
not include air. separate from opinions and reduce the chances of
getting a garbled copy of the data:
Does air have weight? Most people would probably
say no, since they do not feel any physical sensation (1) Take your raw data in pen, directly into your lab
of the atmosphere pushing down on them. A delicate notebook. This is what real scientists do. The point
house of cards remains standing, and is not crushed is to make sure that what you’re writing down is
to the floor by the weight of the atmosphere. a first-hand record, without mistakes introduced by
recopying it. (If you don’t have your two lab note-
Compare that to the experience of a dolphin, though. books yet, staple today’s raw data into your note-
A dolphin might contemplate a tasty herring sus- book when you get it.)
pended in front of it and conjecture that water had
no weight, because the herring did not involuntarily (2) Everybody should record their own copy of the
shoot down to the sea floor because of the weight of raw data. Do not depend on a “group secretary.”
the water overhead. Water does have weight, how- (3) If you do calculations during lab, keep them on
ever, which a sufficiently skeptical dolphin physicist a separate page or draw a line down the page and
might be able to prove with a simple experiment. keep calculations on one side of the line and raw
One could weigh a 1-liter metal box full of water and data on the other. This is to distinguish facts from
then replace the water with air and weigh it again. inferences.
The difference in weight would be the difference in
weight between 1 liter of water of and 1 liter of air. Because this is the first meeting of the lab class,
Since air is much less dense than water, this would there is no prelab writeup due at the beginning of
approximately equal the weight of 1 liter of water. the class. Instead, you will discuss your results with
your instructor at various points.
7
A Density of air one funnel that you will use only for the oil, since
You can remove the air from the flask by attach- the oil tends to form a film on the sides.) Finally,
ing the vacuum pump to the vacuum flask with the gently pour the alcohol on top. Alcohol does not mix
rubber and glass tubing, then turning on the pump. with cooking oil either, so it forms a third layer. By
You can use the scale to determine how much mass making the alcohol come exactly up to the mark on
was lost when the air was evacuated. the calibrated flask, you can make the total volume
very accurately equal to 100 mL. In practice, it is
Make any other observations you need in order to hard to avoid putting in too much alcohol through
find out the density of air and to estimate error bars the funnel, so if necessary you can take some back
for your result. out with the pipette.
B Is volume and/or mass conserved when two If you put the whole thing on the balance now, you
fluids are mixed? know both the volume (100 mL) and the mass of
the whole thing when the alcohol and water have
The idea here is to find out whether volume and/or
been kept separate. Now, mix everything up with
mass is conserved when water and alcohol are mixed.
the magnetic stirrer. The water and alcohol form a
The obvious way to attempt this would be to mea-
mixture. You can now test whether the volume or
sure the volume and mass of a sample of water, the
mass has changed.
volume and mass of a sample of alcohol, and their
volume and mass when mixed. There are two prob- If the mixture does not turn out to have a volume
lems with the obvious method: (1) when you pour that looks like exactly 100 mL, you can use the fol-
one of the liquids into the other, droplets of liquid lowing tricks to measure accurately the excess or
will be left inside the original vessel; and (2) the deficit with respect to 100 mL. If it is less than 100
most accurate way to measure the volume of a liq- mL, weigh the flask, pipette in enough water to bring
uid is with a volumetric flask, which only allows one it up to 100 mL, weigh it again, and then figure out
specific, calibrated volume to be measured. what mass and volume of water you added based on
the change in mass. If it is more than 100 mL, weigh
the flask, pipette out enough of the mixture to bring
the volume down to 100 mL, weigh it again, and
make a similar calculation using the change in mass
and the density of the oil. If you need to pipette out
some oil, make sure to wash and rinse the pipette
thoroughly afterwards.
Prelab
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
my office hours before lab and get help! Otherwise
you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
P1 Give an example of two things having the same
mass and different densities.
P2 Give an example of two things having the same
density and different masses.
Here’s a way to get around those problems. Put the P3 Why can the density of water be given in a
magnetic stirrer inside the flask. Pour water through book as a standard value under conditions of stan-
a funnel into a volumetric flask, filling it less than dard temperature and pressure, while the mass of
half-way. (Do not use the pipette to transfer the water cannot?
water.) A common mistake is to fill the flask more
than half-way. Now pour a thin layer of cooking P4 What would your raw data in part A be like if
oil on top. Cooking oil does not mix with water, air had no weight? What would they be like if air
so it forms a layer on top of the water. (Set aside did have weight?
8 Lab 1 Conservation Laws

P5 Referring to the section of the lab manual on two people to turn in the same calculations, or on a
error analysis, plan how you will estimate your ran- lab requiring a graph for the whole group to make
dom errors. one graph and turn in copies.
P6 In part B, pick either mass or volume, and de- As explained in the syllabus, you’ll do some labs as
scribe what your observations would be like if that formal writeups, others as informal “check-off” labs.
quantity was not conserved.
The format of formal lab writeups is given in ap-
pendix 1 on page 45. The raw data section must
be contained in your bound lab notebook. Typically
Self-Check people word-process the abstract section, and any
Do a quick analysis of both parts without error anal- other sections that don’t include much math, and
ysis. Plan how you will do your error analysis. stick the printout in the notebook to turn it in. The
justification and reasoning section will usually just
consist of hand-written calculations you do in your
Analysis lab notebook. You need two lab notebooks, because
on days when you turn one in, you need your other
A. If your results show that air has weight, determine
one to take raw data in for the next lab. You may
the (nonzero) density of air, with an estimate of your
find it convenient to leave one or both of your note-
random errors.
books in the cupboard at your lab bench whenever
B. Decide whether volume and/or mass is conserved you don’t need to have them at home to work on;
when alcohol and water are mixed, taking into ac- this eliminates the problem of forgetting to bring
count your estimates of random errors. your notebook to school.
The most common mistake is to fail to address the For a check-off lab, the main thing I’ll pay attention
point of the lab. If you feel like you don’t understand to is your abstract. The rest of your work for a
why you were doing any of this, then you were miss- check-off lab can be informal, and I may not ask to
ing out on your educational experience! See the back see it unless I think there’s a problem after reading
of the lab manual for the format of lab writeups. your abstract.
Notes For Next Week

(1) Next week, when you turn in your writeup for
this lab, you also need to turn in a prelab writeup for
the next lab in the same notebook. The prelab ques-
tions are listed at the end of the description of that
lab in the lab manual. Never start a lab without un-
derstanding the answers to all the prelab questions;
if you turn in partial answers or answers you’re un-
sure of, discuss the questions with your instructor
or with other students to make sure you understand
what’s going on.
(2) You should exchange phone numbers with your
lab partners for general convenience throughout the
semester. You can also get each other’s e-mail ad-
dresses by logging in to Spotter and clicking on “e-
mail.”
Rules and Organization for

Professor Crowell’s Labs
Collection of raw data is work you share with your
lab partners. Once you’re done collecting data, you
need to do your own analysis. E.g., it is not okay for
9
2 Conservation of Energy
Apparatus face box.
air track (small)

cart Observations
photogate (PASCO) (under lab benches in rm. 418)
computer The basic idea is to release the cart at the top of the
air blowers track, and let it pass through the photogate, which
power strips for switching CENCO blowers on and is at a certain height h. The cart accelerates, and
off you can determine its approximate speed, v, when it
vernier calipers passes through the photogate. (See prelab question
wood blocks P1. Make sure to use vernier calipers to measure
the width of the vane, w.) From v and h, you can
find the kinetic energy, the gravitational energy, and
the total energy. By taking data with the photogate
Goal at different places, you can determine whether the
total energy was conserved.
Test whether the acceleration of gravity acts like a
vector. You can level the track to start with by adjusting
the screws until the cart will sit on the track without
accelerating in either direction.
Introduction Test for friction. If the frictionless air cushion is
working correctly, the cart should never just grind
to a halt.
Because of the physical shape of the track, it is not
possible to get a sufficiently precise measurement of
h with a vertical ruler. Instead, you will need to de-
termine h indirectly by measuring the cart’s position
x on the centimeter scale that runs along the length
of the track, and then doing some trig.
The figure shows a cart that slides down a frictionless
inclined plane. The goal is to test conservation of Both x and h change a little bit during the time
energy in the motion of the cart. when the cart is in the process of passing through the
photogate. The best approximation is obtained by
taking this position to be the half-way point between
Setup the position where the cart first blocks the photogate
and the point where it unblocks the photogate. You
The speed of the cart at any given point can be mea- can determine where these positions are by sliding
sured as follows. The photogate consists of a light the cart into the photogate and watching the red
and a sensor on opposite sides of the track. When LED on the top of the photogate, which lights up
the cart passes by, the cardboard vane on top blocks when it is blocked.
the light momentarily, keeping light from getting to
the sensor. The computer detects the electrical sig- Hints:
nal from the sensor, and records the amount of time,
tb , for which the photogate was blocked. Given tb , Keep in mind that if the cart rebounds at the
you can determine the approximate speed that cart bottom of the track and comes back up through
had when it passed through the photogate. The use the gate, you will get a second, bogus time
of the computer software is explained in Appendix 6; reading.
of the three modes described there, you want to use
the software in the mode in which it measures the If you’re using one of the gray air pumps, which
time interval over which the photogate was blocked. has a knob to adjust the flow, make sure it’s on
Plug the photogate into the DG1 plug on the inter- the highest speed, or the cart will drag on the
10 Lab 2 Conservation of Energy

track, giving bogus data. It’s easy to mess up your most typical data-point, in which the energy
this adjustment, so get the knob set correctly is split roughly 50-50 between U and K, and then
for once and for all, and then never touch it assume that the same error bars on U , K, and total
again. To turn the pump on and off, plug the energy apply to all the other points on the graph as
blower in to its own power strip, and use the well.
switch on the power strip.
Discuss whether you think conservation of energy
Release the cart by hand after starting up the has been verified.
air pump. If you leave the cart on the track
and then turn on the pump, there will be a
period of time when the pump is first starting
up, and the cart will drag.
You’ll use the photogates again in lab 8, so make

sure you understand the technique thoroughly, and
take notes on it so you’ll remember how it’s done.
Prelab
P1 If w is the width of the vane, and tb is defined
as suggested above, what is the speed of the cart
when it passes through the photogate?
P2 Given the x and the angle θ at which the track
is inclined, find an equation for the height h. Note
that in the real lab, you are free to choose either
end of the track as one to raise, and there is actually
nothing physically special about the point marked
x = 0 at one end of the centimeter scale. First start
off by deriving your expressoin for h using any simple
assumption you find convenient about where x = 0
is located. Next, consider what effect, if any, there
would be on conservation of energy if the centime-
ter scale was unglued and shifted to the right by a
certain amount.
P3 It is not possible to measure θ accurately with
a protractor. How can θ be determined based on
the distance between the feet of the air track and
the height of the wood block?
Analysis
Graph U , K, and the total energy as functions of
x, with error bars (see appendices 1, 2, 3, and 4),
all overlaid on the same plot. Make sure to include
the point with K = 0. As a shortcut in your error
analysis, it’s okay if you do the error analysis for
11
3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field
Note to the lab technician: The computers to use height (h1 ) takes a smaller time (∆t1 ) to reach the
are the ones with labels on their sides saying Lassie, floor, and the ball released from the greater height
Fang, and Buck. (h2 ) takes a longer time (∆t2 ). The time intervals
involved are short enough that due to the limita-
tions of your reflexes it is impossible to make good
Apparatus enough measurements with stopwatch. Instead, you
will record the sounds of the two balls’ impacts on
(two stations):
the floor using the computer. The computer shows
vertical plank with electromagnets
a graph in which the x axis is time and the y axis
steel balls (2/station)
shows the vibration of the sound wave hitting the
Linux computers with Audacity installed (in 416T)
microphone. You can measure the time between the
two visible “blips” on the screen. You will measure
three things: h1 , h2 , and the time interval ∆t2 − ∆t1
between the impact of the second ball and the first.
Goal From these data, with a little algebra, you can find
Make a high-precision measurement of the strength g.
of the Earth’s gravitational field, g, in Fullerton. The experiment would have been easier to analyze if
we could simply drop a single ball and measure the
time from when it was released to when it hit the
Introduction floor. But since our timing technique is based on
When objects fall, and all forces other than grav- sound, and no sound is produced when the balls are
ity are negligible, we observe that the acceleration released, we need to have two balls. If h1 , the height
is the same, regardless of the object’s mass, shape, of the lower ball, could be made very small, then it
density, or other properties. However, the acceler- would hit the floor at essentially the same moment
ation does depend a little bit where on the earth the two balls were released (∆t1 would equal 0), and
we do the experiment, and even bigger variations in ∆t2 −∆t1 would be essentially the same as ∆t2 . But
acceleration can be observed by, e.g., going to the we can’t make h1 too small or the sound would not
moon. Thus, this acceleration can be considered as be loud enough to detect on the computer.
a property of space itself, and we can refer to it as
the gravitational field in that region of space. Just B Using the computer software
as you would use a magnetic compass to find out There are three Linux computers in 416T that have
about the magnetic field in the classroom, you can the right software and hardware. They’re labeled
use dropping masses to find out about the gravita- Lassie, Fang, and Buck. (On Fang, only sound in-
tional field. In this experiment, you’ll measure the puyt works, not output.) First let’s see how to record
gravitational field, g, in the classroom to sufficiently yourself on the computer saying “hello.” Use the
high precision that, if everybody does a good job and xmix or xmixer program to set the record and mic
we pool and average everyone’s data to reduce ran- levels all the way up. Start up the sound recording
dom errors, we should be able to get a value that is program, called Audacity. Set the record level on
measurably different from the generic world-average high, using the control marked − . . . + next to the
value you would find in a textbook. microphone icon. Record your sound.
A Measuring g precisely Before you get down to serious science, you may en-
joy listening to your own voice reversed in time. A
You will measure g, the acceleration of an object in fun diversion is to write a sentence down backwards,
free fall, using electronic timing techniques. The idea read it out loud, and then electronically reverse it
of the method is that you’ll have two steel balls hang- so it’s forward again. It sounds sort of like someone
ing underneath electromagnets at different heights. with a thick Hungarian accent.
You’ll simultaneously turn off the two magnets us-
ing the same switch, causing the balls to drop at To find out how long a sound is, you can use the
the same moment. The ball dropped from the lower curson and click to find the time corresponding to
12 Lab 3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field

To drop the balls, you should break the circuit
by pulling one of the wires out of the plug on
the power supply. Don’t use the switch; if you
use the switch, it takes some time for the mag-
netic field to decay, and the balls stick for a
while before dropping.
Two thumps, as recorded on the computer through the
microphone. Audacity will let you keep on making new record-
ings, stacking the graphs vertically. However,
if you do this you will introduce significant tim-
a particular point in the graph. Sometimes you are ing errors. The reason is probably that Audac-
not sure which wiggles in the visual representation of ity is designed for use in multitrack recording
the sound correspond to which parts of the recorded of music, so it tries to play back the previously
sound. To find out, you can select part of the sound recorded tracks while recording the new one,
and listen to only that part. and on cheap sound hardware this causes little
timing glitches.
C Finding the interval between two sounds
When you record the sound of the two consecutive
impacts of the balls, they will look like vertical spikes Analysis
on the screen. You can practice using hand claps.
Extract a value of g from your data.
To accurately find the time when one of the sounds
started, first zoom in on it until it’s like you’re seeing Apply the correction for air resistance found in home-
it under a powerful microscope. Click on the onset work problem 40 from chapter 2 of Simple Nature,
of the sound, and read the time from the scale at the running the program with the actual mass and ra-
top of the window. dius of the balls used in this lab. This correction is
derived based on various approximations, which may
You may get this error message: ”Error while open- or may not be valid, about things like the smooth-
ing sound device. Please check the input device set- ness of the ball and the pattern formed by the air
tings and the project sample rate.” Quit the program flowing over it. You should add in the correction, but
and restart it. you shouldn’t necessarily believe in the correction
Some of the computers have very low gain on their as being perfectly correct. I’m interested in pinning
microphones, so it may be difficult to see the thumps. down the correction better, and I’ll give you extra
To work around this, do the following after you’ve credit if you want to try an independent project to
recorded a sound: type control-A to select the whole work on this. Some possible ways of attacking this:
recording, and then do Effect>Amplify; the default
is to amplify the sound by the maximum possible Do the experiment with balls of different sizes,
amount,which is what you want. and see if the uncorrected results really are in-
consistent, and the corrected ones consistent.
You should make a series of measurements, and make
I’ve already tried this with small (9-mm diam-
sure they agree at the level of about 10−4 s; if they
eter) balls, but found that I was unable to get
don’t, there’s something wrong with your technique.
good data at all. It might work better if we
Also, you should check that your result for g makes
could find some larger balls.
sense.
Here are some common problems that cause incon- Vary the heights, and see if the effect on the
sistent or wrong results: (uncorrected) results for g is consistent with
the calculation.
The balls are brushing against the electrical
wires as they fall. Derive error bars on your result, using the techniques
You’re misidentifying the thumps. in appendices 2 and 3.
The surface the balls are dropping onto has

dents in it. Self-Check
You’re not positioning the balls in on the same Extract the value of g, with error bars. Read Ap-
spot on the magnets every time. pendix 3 for information on how to do error analysis
13
with propagation of errors; get help from your in-
structor if necessary.
Prelab
P1 If your instructor has assigned homework prob-
lem 43 from ch. 0 of Simple Nature,don’t bother
turning in another copy of your work for this prelab
question. Derive an equation for g in terms of the
quantities you’ll measure, which are h1 , h2 , and the
time interval ∆t2 − ∆t1 . The point of the lab is to
measure g, so don’t just say “well of course g is 9.8
m/s2 .” (You should check your equation by using
the answer checker for the homework problem.)
14 Lab 3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field

15
4 Absolute Zero
Note to the lab technician: The dessicant needs to
be dry before the experiment. If it’s blue, it’s dry. If
it’s pink, it needs to be pumped on for a few hours
with a vacuum pump while heating it with a hair
dryer. Also, please put 2 liters of alcohol in a freezer
overnight, then put them in the ice chest.
Apparatus
gas capillary tube
large test tube
mercury thermometer
glass syringe
electric heating pad
oven mitts
latex tubing
ice
string
funnels point. (If you leave the thermometer in the water
clamps while it’s heating, you’ll be able to observe later the
gripper clamps interesting fact that the water stops heating up once
it reaches the boiling point.) If the water starts boil-
ing before you’re ready, just turn off the heat and
reheat it later – it doesn’t cool off very fast.
Introduction
The capillary tube is sealed at the bottom and open
If heat is a form of random molecular motion, then at the top, with a large bulb full of dessicant just
it makes sense that there is some minimum temper- below the top to keep the air inside dry. There is
ature at which the molecules aren’t moving at all. a small amount of mercury inside the tube. Right
With fancy equipment, physicists have gotten sam- now, the mercury is probably “floured,” i.e., broken
ples of matter to within a fraction of a degree above up into small pieces sticking on the sides of the tube.
absolute zero, but they have never actually reached The idea is to collect the mercury into a single drop,
absolute zero (and the laws of thermodynamics ac- with a sample of air trapped in the capillary tube
tually imply that they never can). Nevertheless, we under it. The mercury simply acts as a seal. As the
can determine how cold absolute zero is without even air is heated and cooled, it expands and contracts,
getting very close to it. Kinetic theory tells us that and you can measure its volume by watching the
the volume of an ideal gas is proportional to how mercury seal rise and drop. By the way, don’t be
high it is above absolute zero. In this lab, you’ll scared of the mercury; mercury vapor is a deadly
measure the volume of a sample of air at tempera- poison, but liquid mercury is entirely harmless unless
tures between 0 and 100 degrees C, and determine you ingest it or get it in an open cut. There is a small
where absolute zero lies by extrapolating to the tem- filter made of glass wool at the top end of the bulb,
perature at which it would have had zero volume. which will keep the mercury from getting out.
Remove the gas syringe from the box, being care-
Observations ful not to let the glass plunger drop out and break.
Connect it to the capillary tube with a piece of tub-
Tie a short piece of string to the thermometer so ing.
that you’ll be able to pull it back out of the beaker
when you want to without dipping your hands in First you need to get the mercury into a single blob
hot water. Start heating the water up to the boiling in the cavity at the top of the capillary, where it
widens out just below the bulb. If it’s already form-
16 Lab 4 Absolute Zero

ing a seal across the capillary tube, you won’t be You can now start taking a series of temperature and
able to get it to move, because it’s trapped between volume measurements as the water in the test tube
the pressures of the inside air and the outside air. gradually cools down towards room temperature.
You can break the seal by opening the stopcock and
The cooling process is rapid at first. If you get im-
drawing some air out with the syringe. (Note that
patient, you can gently pour a small amount of cool
the stopcock has three holes; two are lined up with
water in the top, making sure to let it equilibrate for
the knob, and the third one is on the side marked
a few minutes afterward before taking data. Don’t
with a dot on the knob.) If this doesn’t break the
try to swirl the test tube around in order to speed
seal, you can very gently shake the capillary tube
up the equilibration – that’s what I was trying to do
longitudinally. Shaking it longitudinally means mov-
the time the test tube slipped out of the clamp and
ing it along its own length, like an arrow. Don’t tap
broke.
it, and don’t shake it transversely (like a fever ther-
mometer or a magician’s wand), because students When the water gets close to room temperature, the
have broken tubes that way in the past. Now dis- cooling process slows down. At some point, you may
connect the tube from the syringe, and, if necessary, wish to fill a beaker with lukewarm water and im-
shake it extremely gently upside-down to get all the merse the end of the flask in it in order to speed up
mercury droplets to collect in the cavity. the cooling. Meanwhile, you can start preparing a
sample of very cold alcohol mixed with ice.
At this point, if you put the tube upright again, the
mercury drop will sit at the very top of the capil- Once you have data at temperatures down to near
lary, with a sample of air trapped below it filling the room temperature, pour some liquid off of the alcohol-
entire tube. This is no good, because most of the ice mixture, and use it to replace the water in the
temperatures you’ll be using in this lab are hotter flask. Make sure you don’t get ice in the flask, which
than room temperature, so you need room for the makes it impossible to insert the capillary tube and
air sample to expand without forcing the mercury thermometer.
out into the cavity. Here’s how to get a smaller vol-
ume of air trapped under the mercury. Push the
plunger all the way into the syringe, open the stop- Analysis
cock, and connect the syringe to the tube, leaving
Graph the temperature and volume against each other.
the tube horizontal with the mercury in the cavity.
Does the graph appear to be linear? If so, extrap-
Now pull the plunger out until you’ve created a 40%
olate to find the temperature at which the volume
vacuum. If you have the stopcock in the correct po-
would be zero.
sition, it should take quite a strong force to pull the
plunger out this far. Now bring the tube upright If your data are nice and linear, then your main
again, and gently allow the plunger to slide back in. source of error will be random errors, and you should
At this point, the mercury should be about 40% be- then determine error bars for your value of absolute
low the top of the capillary, and you can disconnect zero using the techniques discussed in Appendix 4.
the syringe.
Detach the syringe and tubing, so from now on, ev- Prelab
erything is always at constant pressure! We want
temperature and volume to be the only variables The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
that change in this experiment. By leaving every- you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
thing open to the air in the room, we guarantee that ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
the pressure will equal the air pressure in the room. you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
If necessary, bring the water back to a boil, and then
turn off the heat again. Being careful not to burn
yourself, lower the clamp so the test tube is almost P1 Should you measure the volume from the top,
touching the tabletop; this way, if it slips out of the the middle, or the bottom of the mercury? Explain.
clamp, it won’t fall far enough to break. (I broke one
of the test tubes myself by letting it slip this way.)
Insert the thermometer and the capillary tube, and
give them a minute or so to come to equilibrium with
the water.
17
5 Interactions
Apparatus ball being pushed outlines two relationships involv-
ing four objects:
single neodymium magnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
triple neodymium magnet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
compass
triple-arm balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2/group
clamp and 50-cm vertical rod for holding balance up
string
tape
scissors
According to Aristotle, there are asymmetries in-
heavy-duty spring scales
volved in both situations.
rubber stoppers
(1) The earth’s role is not interchangeable with that
of the rock. The earth functions only as a place
where the rock tends to go, while the rock is an
Goal object that moves from one place to another.
Form hypotheses about interactions and test them. (2) The hand’s role is not analogous to the ball’s.
The hand is capable of motion all by itself, but the
ball can’t move without receiving the ability to move
Introduction from the hand.
Why does a rock fall if you drop it? The ancient If we do an experiment that shows these types of
Greek philosopher Aristotle theorized that it was be- asymmetries, then Aristotle’s theory is supported.
cause the rock was trying to get to its natural place, If we find a more symmetric situation, then there’s
in contact with the earth. Why does a ball roll if you something wrong with Aristotle’s theory.
push it? Aristotle would say that only living things
have the ability to move of their own volition, so the
ball can only move if you give motion to it. Aristo- Observations
tle’s explanations were accepted by Arabs and Euro-
The following important rules serve to keep facts
peans for two thousand years, but beginning in the
separate from opinions and reduce the chances of
Renaissance, his ideas began to be modified drasti-
getting a garbled copy of the data:
cally. Today, Aristotelian physics is discussed mainly
by physics teachers, who often find that their stu- (1) Take your raw data in pen, directly into your lab
dents intuitively believe the Aristotelian world-view notebook. This is what real scientists do. The point
and strongly resist the completely different version is to make sure that what you’re writing down is
of physics that is now considered correct. It is not a first-hand record, without mistakes introduced by
uncommon for a student to begin a physics exam recopying it. (If you don’t have your two lab note-
and then pause to ask the instructor, “Do you want books yet, staple today’s raw data into your note-
us to answer these questions the way you told us was book when you get it.)
true, or the way we really think it works?” The idea
(2) Everybody should record their own copy of the
of this lab is to make observations of objects, mostly
raw data. Do not depend on a “group secretary.”
magnets, pushing and pulling on each other, and to
figure out some of the corrections that need to be (3) If you do calculations during lab, keep them on
made to Aristotelian physics. a separate page or draw a line down the page and
keep calculations on one side of the line and raw
Some people might say that it’s just a matter of
data on the other. This is to distinguish facts from
definitions or semantics whether Aristotle is correct
inferences.
or not. Is Aristotle’s theory even testable? One
testable feature of the theory is its asymmetry. The Because this is the first meeting of the lab class,
Aristotelian description of the rock falling and the there is no prelab writeup due at the beginning of
the class. Instead, you will discuss your results with
18 Lab 5 Interactions
your instructor at various points. B Qualitative observations of the interaction of
two magnets
A Comparing magnets’ strengths
Play around with the two magnets and see how they
To make an interesting hypothesis about what will interact with each other. Can one attract the other?
happen in part C, the main event of the lab, you’ll Can one repel the other? Can they act on each other
need to know how the top (single) and bottom (triple) simultaneously? Do they need to be touching in or-
magnets’ strengths compare. It would seem logical der to do anything to each other? Can A act on B
that the triple magnet would be three times stronger while at the same time B does not act on A at all?
than the single, but in this part of the lab you’re go- Can A pull B toward itself at the same time that
ing to find out for sure. B pushes A away? When holding one of the heavier
magnets, it may be difficult to feel when there is any
push or pull on it; you may wish to have one person
hold the magnet with her eyes closed while the other
person moves the other magnet closer and farther.
C Measurement of interactions between two mag-

nets
Orient your magnet this way, as if it’s rolling toward the Once you have your data from parts A and B, you
compass from the north. With no magnet nearby, the are ready to form a hypothesis about the following
compass points to magnetic north (dashed arrow). The situation. Suppose we set up two balances as shown
magnet deflects the compass to a new direction. in the figure. The magnets are not touching. The
top magnet is hanging from a hook underneath the
pan, giving the same result as if it was on top of the
One way of measuring the strength of a magnet is pan. Make sure it is hanging under the center of the
to place the magnet to the north or south of the pan. You will want to make sure the magnets are
compass and see how much it deflects (twists) the pulling on each other, not pushing each other away,
needle of a compass. You need to test the magnets so that the top magnet will stay in one place.
at equal distances from the compass, which will pro-
duce two different angles.1 It’s also important to get
everything oriented properly, as in the figure.2
Make sure to take your data with the magnets far
enough from the compass that the deflection angle
is fairly small (say 5 to 30 ◦ ). If the magnet is close
enough to the compass to deflect it by a large an-
gle, then the ratio of the angles does not accurately
represent the ratio of the magnets’ strengths. After
all, just about any magnet is capable of deflecting
the compass in any direction if you bring it close
enough, but that doesn’t mean that all magnets are
equally strong.
1 There are two reasons why it wouldn’t make sense to find
different distances that produced the same angle. First, you

don’t know how the strengths of the effect falls off with dis-
tance; it’s not necessarily true, for instance, that the magnetic
field is half as strong at twice the distance. Second, the point
of this is to help you interpret part C, and in part C, the triple
The balances will not show the magnets’ true masses,
magnet’s distance from the single magnet is the same as the
single magnet’s distance from the first magnet. because the magnets are exerting forces on each other.
2 Laying the magnet flat on the table causes the compass The top balance will read a higher number than it
needle to try to tilt out of the horizontal plane, which it’s not would without any magnetic forces, and the bot-
designed to do. Turning it so that it faces the compass also
doesn’t work, because it makes the magnet’s magnetic field
tom balance will have a lower than normal reading.
lie along the same north-south line as the Earth’s, rather than The difference between each magnet’s true mass and
perpendicular to it. the reading on the balance gives a measure of how
19
strongly the magnet is being pushed or pulled by the you’re completely done with your analysis — it’s no
other magnet. fun to have to rebuild it from scratch because you
made a mistake!
How do you think the amount of pushing or pulling
experienced by the two magnets will compare? In D Measurement of interactions involving ob-
other words, which reading will change more, or will jects in contact
they change by the same amount? Write down a hy-
pothesis; you’ll test this hypothesis in part C of the You’ll recall that Aristotle gave completely different
lab. If you think the forces will be unequal predict interpretations for situations where one object was
their ratio. in contact with another, like the hand pushing the
ball, and situations involving objects not in contact
Discuss with your instructor your results from parts with each other, such as the rock falling down to
A and B, and your hypothesis about what will hap- the earth. Your magnets were not in contact with
pen with the two balances. each other. Now suppose we try the situation shown
Now set up the experiment described above with two below, with one person’s hand exerting a force on the
balances. Since we are interested in the changes in other’s. All the forces involved are forces between
the scale readings caused by the magnetic forces, you objects in contact, although the two people’s hands
will need to take a total of four scale readings: one cannot be in direct contact because the spring scales
pair with the balances separated and one pair with have to be inserted to measure how strongly each
the magnets close together as shown in the figure person is pulling. Suppose the two people do not
above. make any special arrangement in advance about how
hard to pull. How do you think the readings on the
When the balances are together and the magnetic two scales will compare? Write down a hypothesis,
forces are acting, it is not possible to get both bal- and discuss it with your instructor before continuing.
ances to reach equilibrium at the same time, because
sliding the weights on one balance can cause its mag-
net to move up or down, tipping the other balance.
Therefore, while you take a reading from one bal-
ance, you need to immobilize the other in the hori-
zontal position by taping its tip so it points exactly Now carry out the measurement shown in the figure.
at the zero mark.
You will also probably find that as you slide the Self-Check
weights, the pointer swings suddenly to the oppo-
site side, but you can never get it to be stable in Do all your analysis in lab, including error analysis
the middle (zero) position. Try bringing the pointer for part C. Error analysis is discussed in appendices
manually to the zero position and then releasing it. 2 and 3; get help from your instructor if necessary.
If it swings up, you’re too low, and if it swings down,
you’re too high. Search for the dividing line between
the too-low region and the too-high region. Analysis
If the changes in the scale readings are very small In your writeup, present your results from all four
(say a few grams or less), you need to get the mag- parts of the experiment, including error analysis for
nets closer together. It should be possible to get the part C.
scale readings to change by large amounts (up to 10
or 20 g).
Part C is the only part of the experiment where you
will be required to analyze random errors using the
techniques outlined in Appendices 2 and 3 at the
back of the lab manual. Think about how you can
get an estimate of the random errors in your mea-
surements. Do you need to do multiple measure-
ments? Discuss this with your instructor if you’re
uncertain.
Don’t take apart your setup until lab is over, and
20 Lab 5 Interactions
21
6 Conservation of Momentum
Apparatus have any numerical values for the velocities, but sup-
pose we say that the initial velocity of the incoming
computer with Logger Pro software cart is one unit. Does it look like conservation of
track momentum was satisfied?
2 dynamics carts and 2 carts with magnets
1-kg weight B Mirror symmetry
500 g slotted weight Now reenact the collision from part A, but do every-
masking tape thing as a mirror image. The roles of the target cart
2 force sensors with rubber corks and incoming cart are reversed, and the direction of
motion is also reversed.
M × +M ×
Qualitative Observations =? M × +M × ,
First you’re going to observe some collisions between What happens now? Note that mathematically, we
two carts and see how conservation of momentum use positive and negative signs to indicate the direc-
plays out. If you really wanted to take numerical tion of a velocity in one dimension.
data, it would be a hassle, because momentum de- C An explosion
pends on mass and velocity, and there would be four
different velocity numbers you’d have to measure: Now start with the carts held together, with their
cart 1 before the collision, cart 1 after the collision, magnets repelling. As soon as you release them,
cart 2 before, and cart 2 after. To avoid all this com- they’ll break contact and fly apart due to the re-
plication, the first part of the lab will use only visual pulsion of the magnets.
observations. M × +M ×
Try gently pressing the two carts together on the =? M × +M × ,
track. As they come close to each other, you’ll feel Does momentum appear to have been conserved?
them repelling each other! That’s because they have
magnets built into the ends. The magnets act like D Head-on collision
perfect springs. For instance, if you hold one cart Now try a collision in which the two carts head to-
firmly in place and let the other one roll at it, the wards each other at equal speeds (meaning that one
incoming cart will bounce back at almost exactly the cart’s initial velocity is positive, while the other’s is
same speed. It’s like a perfect superball. negative).
A Equal masses, target at rest, elastic collision M × +M ×
Roll one cart toward the other. The target cart is =? M × +M × ,
initially at rest. Conservation of momentum reads
E Sticking
like this,
Arrange a collision in which the carts will stick to-
M × +M × gether rather than rebounding. You can do this by
=? M × +M × , letting the velcro ends hit each other instead of the
where the two blanks on the left stand for the two magnet ends. Make a collision in which the target is
carts’ velocities before the collision, and the two initially stationary.
blanks on the right are for their velocities after the M × +M ×
collision. All conservation laws work like this: the =? M × +M × ,
total amount of something remains the same. You
don’t have any real numbers, but just from eye- The collision is no longer perfectly springy. Did it
balling the collision, what seems to have happened? seem to matter, or was conservation of momentum
Let’s just arbitrarily say that the mass of a cart is still valid?
one unit, so that wherever it says “M x” in the equa-
tion, you’re just multiplying by one. You also don’t
22 Lab 6 Conservation of Momentum

F Hitting the end of the track steady force from your finger. You’ll want to set the
One end of the track has magnets in it. Take one collection time to a longer period than the default.
cart off the track entirely, and let the other cart roll Position the track so that you can walk all the way
all the way to the end of the track, where it will along its length (not diagonally across the bench).
experience a repulsion from the fixed magnets built Even after you hit the Collect button in Logger Pro,
into the track. Was momentum conserved? Discuss the software won’t actually start collecting data until
this with your instructor. it’s triggered by a sufficiently strong force; squeeze
on one of the sensors to trigger the computer, and
G Unequal masses then go ahead and do the real experiment with the
steady, gently force.
Now put a one kilogram mass on one of the carts,
but leave the other cart the way it was. Attach the What does the graph on the computer look like?
mass to it securely using masking tape. A bare cart
I. Now repeat H, but use a more rapid acceleration
has a mass of half a kilogram, so you’ve now tripled
to bring the cart up to the same momentum. Sketch
the mass of one cart. In terms of our silly (but con-
a comparison of the graphs from parts H and I.
venient) mass units, we now have masses of one unit
and three units for the two carts. Make the triple- Discuss with your instructor how this relates to mo-
mass cart hit the initially stationary one-mass-unit mentum.
cart.
J. You are now going to reenact collision A, but don’t
3M × +M × do it yet! You’ll let the carts’ rubber corks bump into
=? 3M × +M × , each other, and record the forces on the sensors. The
carts will have equal mass, and both forces will be
These velocities are harder to estimate by eye, but if
recorded simultaneously. Before you do it, predict
you estimate numbers roughly, does it seem possible
what you think the graphs will look like, and show
that momentum was conserved?
your sketch to your instructor.
Switch both sensors to the +50 N position, and open
Quantitative Observations the corresponding file on the computer.
Now we’re going to explore the reasons why momen- Zero the sensors, then check the calibration by bal-
tum always seems to be conserved. Parts H and I ancing a 500 g slotted weight on top, taking data,
will be demonstrated by the instructor for the whole zooming in, and putting the mouse cursor on the
class at once. graph. You will probably find that the absolute cal-
ibration of the sensor is very poor when it’s used on
Attach the force sensors to the carts, and put on the
the 50 N scale; keep this in mind when interpreting
rubber stoppers. Make sure that the rubber stoppers
your results from the collision.
are positioned sufficiently far out from the body of
the cart so that they will not rub against the edge of Now try it. To zoom in on the relevant part of the
the cart. Put the switch on the sensor in the +10 N graph, use the mouse to draw a box, and then click
position. Plug the sensors into the DIN1 and DIN2 on the magnifying glass icon. You will notice by
ports on the interface box. Start up the Logger Pro eye that the motion after the collision is a tiny bit
software (version 2), and do File>Open>Probes and different than it was with the magnets, but it’s still
Sensors>Force Sensors>Dual Range Forrce>2-10 N pretty similar. Looking at the graphs, how do you
Dual Range. Tell the computer to zero the sensors. explain the fact that one cart lost exactly as much
Try collecting data and pushing and pulling on the momentum as the other one gained? Discuss this
rubber stopper. You should get a graph showing how with your instructor before going on.
the force went up and down over time. The sensor
K. Now imagine – but don’t do it yet – that you
uses negative numbers (bottom half of the graph) for
are going to reenact part G, where you used unequal
forces that squish the sensor, and positive numbers
masses. Sketch your prediction for the two graphs,
(top half) for forces that stretch it. Try both sensors,
and show your sketch to your instructor before you
and make sure you understand what the red and blue
go on.
traces on the graph are showing you.
Now try it, and discuss the results with your instruc-
H. Put the extra 1-kilogram weight on one of the
tor.
carts. Put it on the track by itself, without the other
cart. Try accelerating it from rest with a gentle,
23
7 Newton’s Second Law
Apparatus of masses, but keep the total amount of mass con-
stant and just divide it differently between the two
pulley holders. Remember to take the masses of the holders
spirit level themselves into account. Make sure to perform your
string measurements with the longest possible distance of
weight holders, not tied to string travel, because you cannot use a stopwatch to get an
two-meter stick accurate measurement of very short time intervals.
slotted weights The best results are obtained with combinations of
stopwatch weights that give times of about 2 to 10 seconds.
foam rubber cushions Also, make sure that the masses are at least a few
hundred grams or so on each side.
Goal Self-Check
Find the acceleration of unequal weights hanging Compare theoretical and experimental values of ac-
from a pulley. celeration for one of your mass combinations. Check
whether they come out fairly consistent.
Observations
Analysis
Use your measured times and distances to find the
actual acceleration, and make a graph of this versus
M − m. Show these experimentally determined ac-
celerations as small circles. Overlaid on the same
graph, show the theoretical equation as a line or
curve.
Prelab
P1 Criticize the following reasoning: The weight
fell 1.0 m in 1 s, so v = 1 m/s, and a = v/t = 1 m/s2 .
P2 Since that won’t work, plan how you really will
Set up unequal masses on the two sides of the pulley, determine your experimental accelerations based on
and determine the resulting acceleration by measur- your measured distance and times.
ing how long it takes for the masses to move a cer-
tain distance. Use the spirit level to make the pulley
vertical; otherwise you get extra friction. Use rela-
tively large masses (typically half a kg or a kg each
side) so that friction is not such a big force in com-
parison to the other forces, and the inertia of the
pulley is negligible compared to the inertia of the
hanging masses. Do several different combinations
24 Lab 7 Newton’s Second Law

25
8 Work
Apparatus continue indefinitely without dying out or building
up relates to conservation of energy, which forbids
air track them to get bigger or smaller without transferring
cart energy in or out.
springs (steel, 1.5 cm diameter)
photogate (PASCO)
computer
stopwatches
air blowers
alligator clips
spring scales
vernier calipers
power strips for switching CENCO blowers on and
off Our model of this type of oscillation about equilib-
string rium will be the motion of a cart on an air track be-
tween two springs. The sum of the forces exerted by
the two springs should at least approximately obey
Hooke’s law,
Goal F = −kx ,
Test conservation of energy for an object oscillating where the equilibrium point is at x = 0. The nega-
around an equilibrium position. tive sign means that if the object is displaced in the
positive direction, the force tends to bring it back in
the negative direction, towards equilibrium, and vice
versa. Of course, there are no actual springs involved
in the sun or between a rock’s atoms, but we can still
learn about this type of situation in a lab experiment
with a mass attached to a spring. In this lab, you
will study how the changing velocity of the object,
in this case a cart on an air track, can be understood
using conservation of energy. The interaction energy
This could be a vibration of the sun, a water balloon, or is given by the amount of work required to displace
a nucleus. the cart from equilibrium, which is minus the work
done by the springs,
Z
Introduction U = − F dx
One of the most impressive aspects of the physical 1 2
= kx
world is the apparent permanence of so many of its 2
parts. Objects such as the sun or rocks on earth
have remained unchanged for billions of years, so it
might seem that they are in perfect equilibrium, with Preliminary Observations
zero net force on each part of the whole. In reality, You should do both of the following methods of de-
the atoms in a rock do not sit perfectly still at an termining the spring constant.
equilibrium point — they are constantly in vibration
about their equilibrium positions. The unchanging
Determining the spring constant: method 1
oblate shape of the sun is also an illusion. The sun
is continually vibrating like a bell or a jiggling water
balloon, as shown in the (exaggerated) figure. The Pull the cart to the side with a spring scale, and
nuclei of atoms also jiggle spontaneously like little make a graph of F versus x. To avoid pulling at the
water balloons. The fact that these types of motion wrong angle, it helps if you connect the spring scale
26 Lab 8 Work
to the cart with a piece of string. Find the combined rest at the same point, and when you are initially
spring constant of the two springs, k, from the slope choosing this release point, make sure that it is not
of the graph. so far from the center that the springs are completely
bunched up or dragging on the track. Don’t forget
Determining the spring constant: method 2 that the x you use in the spring’s energy should be
the distance from the equilibrium position to the po-
sition where the vane is centered on the photogate
The second technique for determining k is to pull the — if you don’t think about it carefully, it’s easy to
cart to one side, release it, and measure the period make a mistake in x equal to half the width of the
of its side-to-side motion, i.e., the time required for vane.
each complete repetition of its vibration. From the
period, T , you can determine k. The period can
be found very accurately by using a stopwatch to Prelab
time many oscillations in a row without stopping.
This method therefore gives a very accurate value The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
for k, which you should use in your analysis of the you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
conservation of energy. Your k value from method 1 ing it, and how to avoid some common mistakes. If
is still useful as a check, however. you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
Observations P1 What measurements besides those mentioned
The technique is essentially the same as in lab 2, above will you need to do in lab in order to check
which you may want to review. Instructions for use conservation of energy?
of the Vernier Timer software are given in Appendix P2 Find the value of x from the figure below. (I’ve
6; you want the mode for measuring how long the made the centimeter scale unrealistic for readability
photogate was blocked. The two springs are at- — the real track is more than a meter long, not 14
tached to the cart by sticking them directly through centimeters.)
the holes in the cart (not through the bumper, which
would cause the springs to drag on the track). At
the ends of the track, the springs can be attached us-
ing alligator clips, again taking care to attach them
high enough so they don’t drag.
Throughout the lab, you should only leave the air
blower turned on when you are actually using the
air track. In the past, we have burned out motors
or even melted hoses by leaving the air blowers on
continuously.
Before you start taking actual data, check whether
you have excessive friction by letting the computer
record data while the cart vibrates back and forth Self-Check
a few times through the photogate. If the air track
is working right, all the time measurements should Calculate the energies at the extremes, where U = 0
be nearly the same, but if the data show the cart and K = 0, and see whether the energy is staying
slowing down a lot from one vibration to the next, roughly constant. You should do this self-check as
then you have a problem with friction. The most early as possible in the lab, so that you can make
common causes of excessive friction are springs that sure you’re not spending lots of time collecting data
are dragging on the track or springs that are not that turn out to be bogus.
horizontal, and thus tipping the cart and causing
one of its edges to drag.
Measure the velocity of the cart for many different
Analysis
values of x by moving the photogate to various po- Graph U , K, and the total energy as functions of
sitions. Make sure you always release the cart from x, with error bars (see appendices 1, 2, and 3), all
overlaid on the same plot. Make sure to include the
27
points with K = 0 and U = 0. As a shortcut in your
error analysis, it’s okay if you do the error analysis
for your most typical data-point, in which the energy
is split roughly 50-50 between U and K, and then
assume that the same error bars on U , K, and total
energy apply to all the other points on the graph as
well.
Discuss whether you think conservation of energy
has been verified.
28 Lab 8 Work
29
9 Resonance
Apparatus
vibrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
stopwatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
multimeter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
banana plug cables
Thornton power supplies (in lab benches in 416)
Leybold 521 545 17-volt DC power supplies1
24 V AC power supplies
Goals
Observe the phenomenon of resonance.
Electrical setup, top view.
Investigate how the width of a resonance de-
pends on the amount of damping.
Introduction
To break a wine glass, an opera singer has to sing If the motor is stopped so that the arms are locked in
the right note. To hear a radio signal, you have to place, the metal disk can still swing clockwise and
be tuned to the right frequency. These are examples counterclockwise because it is attached to the up-
of the phenomenon of resonance: a vibrating system right rod with a flexible spiral spring. A push on the
will respond most strongly to a force that varies with disk will result in vibrations that persist for quite
a particular frequency. a while before the internal friction in the spring re-
duces their amplitude to an imperceptible level. This
would be an example of a free vibration, in which
energy is steadily lost in the form of heat, but no
external force pumps in energy to replace it.
Suppose instead that you initially stop the disk, but
then turn on the electric motor. There is no rigid
mechanical link to the disk, since the motor and disk
are only connected through the very flexible spiral
spring. But the motor will gently tighten and loosen
the spring, resulting in the gradual building up of a
vibration in the disk.
Observations
Simplified mechanical drawing of the vibrator, front view. A Period of Free Vibrations
Start without any of the electrical stuff hooked up.
Twist the disk to one side, release it, and determine
Apparatus its period of vibration. (Both here and at points
later in the lab, you can improve your accuracy by
In this lab you will investigate the phenomenon of timing ten periods and dividing the result by ten.)
resonance using the apparatus shown in the figure. This is the natural period of the vibrations, i.e., the
1 or HP6204B 40-volt supplies, if the Leybold supplies period with which they occur in the absence of any
aren’t bought because of budget issues driving force.
30 Lab 9 Resonance
B Damping ing the move. To compensate for this, the currents
Note the coils of wire at the bottom of the disk. you should use should be based on which oscillator
These are electromagnets. Their purpose is not to you have. Groups 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 should use
attract the disk magnetically (in fact the disk is the oscillators labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, B, and D, respec-
made of a nonmagnetic metal) but rather to increase tively. If your oscillator is 2, 3, or 5, you should use
the amount of damping in the system. Whenever a 300 mA for the low current and 600 mA for the high;
metal is moved through a magnetic field, the elec- if it’s 1, 4, B, or D, use 225 and 450 mA. You will be
trons in the metal are made to swirl around. As using these two current values throughout the lab.
they eddy like this, they undergo random collisions C Frequency of Driven Vibration
with atoms, causing the atoms to vibrate. Vibration
of atoms is heat, so where did this heat energy come Now connect the 24 V AC power supply to the mo-
from ultimately? In our system, the only source of tor.2 The motor has coarse (0 to 100) and fine (-6 to
energy is the energy of the vibrating disk. The net +6) adjustment knobs. (On the older models these
effect is thus to suck energy out of the vibration and are marked “groβ” and “fein,” and have different
convert it into heat. Although this magnetic and scales.) These knobs are not calibrated in Hz, and
electrical effect is entirely different from mechanical their readings don’t even correlate linearly with fre-
friction, the result is the same. Creating damping in quency, so to measure the frequency of the motor
this manner has the advantage that it can be made you need to use the stopwatch. However, it can be
stronger or weaker simply by increasing or decreas- useful to write down the knob settings that produced
ing the strength of the magnetic field. a particular frequency, so that you can reproduce it
later. The older motors don’t control their frequency
Turn off all the electrical equipment and leave it un- as accurately as the newer ones, so if you have one
plugged. Connect the circuit shown in the top left of these you should do the low-Q setup in part F.
of the electrical diagram, consisting of a power sup-
ply to run the electromagnet plus a meter . You do Set the damping current to the higher of the two
not yet need the power supply for driving the motor. values. Turn on the motor and drive the system at a
The meter will tell you how much electrical current frequency very different from its natural frequency.
is flowing through the electromagnet, which will give You will notice that it takes a certain amount of
you a numerical measure of how strong your damp- time, perhaps a minute or two, for the system to
ing is. It reads out in units of amperes (A), the settle into a steady pattern of vibration. This is
metric unit of electrical current. Although this does called the steady-state response to the driving force
not directly tell you the amount of damping force in of the motor.
units of newtons (the force depends on velocity), the Does the system respond by vibrating at its natural
force is proportional to the current. frequency, at the same frequency as the motor, or at
Once you have everything hooked up, check with some frequency in between?
your instructor before plugging things in and turn-
D Resonance
ing them on. If you do the setup wrong, you could
blow a fuse, which is no big deal, but a more seri- With your damping current still set to the higher
ous goof would be to put too much current through value, try different motor frequencies, and observe
the electromagnet, which could burn it up, perma- how strong the steady-state response is. At what
nently ruining it. Once your instructor has checked motor frequency do you obtain the strongest response?
this part of the electrical setup she/he will show you When changing from one frequency to another, you
how to monitor the current on the meter to make have to allow time for the vibrator to reach its steady
sure that you never have too much. state. To make it easier to tell when the steady state
The Q of an oscillator is defined as the number of is happening, it helps if you stop the vibration by
oscillations required for damping to reduce the en- hand after changing the frequency; otherwise you
ergy of the vibrations by a factor of 535 (a defini- can get complicated patterns of motion in which the
tion originating from the quantity e2π ). As planned exponentially decaying motion left over from the old
in your prelab, measure the Q of the system with frequency happens on top of the new driven motion.
the electromagnet turned off, then with a low cur-
rent through the electromagnet, and then a higher 2 We will probably get the 24 V AC power supplies some-
current. There are differences among the oscillators, time in 2009. If we don’t have those yet, use one of the power
possibly because they were dropped on the floor dur- supplies in the lab benches in 416T, setting it on 12 V and
connecting to the +12 and −12 V plugs.
31
You can save yourself some time if you think of this tude.]
part and part F as one unit, and plan ahead so that
the data you take now are also the data you need for
part F. Self-Check
E Resonance Strength Make your graphs for part F (see below), and see if
they make sense. Make sure to make the frequency
Set the motor to the resonant frequency, i.e., the
axis expanded enough to get an accurate FWHM
frequency at which you have found you obtain the
from the graph,
strongest response. Now measure the amplitude of
the vibrations you obtain with each of the two damp-
ing currents. How does the strength of the resonance Analysis
depend on damping?
Compare your observations in parts C, D, and E
With low amounts of damping, I have sometimes en-
with theory.
countered a problem where the system, when driven
near resonance, never really settles down into a steady For part F, construct graphs with the square of the
state. The amplitude varies dramatically from one amplitude on the y axis and the frequency on the
minute to the next, perhaps because the power sup- x axis. The reason for using the square of the am-
ply is not stable enough to control the driving fre- plitude is that the standard way of specifying the
quency consistently enough. If this happens to you, width of a resonance peak is to give its full width at
check with your instructor. half resonance (FWHM), which is measured between
the two points where the energy of the steady-state
F Width of the Resonance vibration equals half its maximum value. Energy is
Now measure the response of the system for a large proportional to the square of the amplitude. Deter-
number of driving frequencies, so that you can graph mine the FWHM of the resonance for each value of
the resonance curve and determine the width of the the damping current, and find whether the expected
resonance. Concentrate on the area near the top relationship exists between Q and FWHM; make a
and sides of the peak, which is what’s important for numerical test, not just a qualitative one. Obviously
finding the full width at half maximum (FWHM), there is no way you can get an accurate FWHM if
∆f . the peak is only as wide as a pencil on the graph —
make an appropriate choice of the range of frequen-
To make this part less time-consuming, your instruc-
cies on the x axis.
tor will assign your group to do only one of the two
graphs, low-Q or high-Q. Each group will have their
own data for one Q and another group’s data for
another Q.
G Phase
Observe the phase response, δ, by comparing the
motion of the disk with the motion of the pointer
attached to the driving arm. Does δ have the ex-
pected behavior at ω ωo and for ω ωo ?
Prelab
P1 Plan how you will determine the Q of your os-
cillator in part B. [Hint: Note that the energy of a
vibration is proportional to the square of the ampli-
32 Lab 9 Resonance
33
10 The Force Vector
Apparatus
force table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
spirit level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
weights
string
Goal
Observations
Test whether the vector sum of the forces acting on
an object at rest is equal to zero. The apparatus consists of a small circular table, with
a small metal ring held in the middle by the tension
in four strings. Each string goes over a pulley at the
Introduction edge of the table, so that a weight can be hung on it
to control the tension. The angles can be recorded
Modern physics claims that when a bridge, an earth-
either graphically, by sliding a piece of paper un-
quake fault, or an oak tree doesn’t move, it is be-
derneath, or by reading angles numerically off of an
cause the forces acting on it, which combine accord-
angular scale around the circumference of the table.
ing to vector addition, add up to zero. Although
this may seem like a reasonable statement, it was Use the spirit level to level the table completely us-
far from obvious to premodern scientists. Aristotle, ing the screws on the feet. Set up four strings with
for instance, said that it was the nature of each of weights, using the small pin to hold the ring in place.
the four elements, earth, fire, water and air, to re- Adjust the angles or the amounts of weight or both,
turn to its natural location. Rain would fall from until the ring is in equilibrium without the pin, and
the sky because it was trying to return to its natu- is positioned right over the center of the table. Avoid
ral location in the lakes and oceans, and once it got a symmetric arrangement of the strings (e.g., don’t
to its natural location it would stop moving because space them all 90 degrees apart), and don’t make any
that was its nature. forces collinear with each other. The ring is an ex-
tended object, so in order to treat it mathematically
When a modern scientist considers a book resting on
as a pointlike object you should make sure that all
a table, she says that it holds still because the force
the strings are lined up with the center of the ring,
of gravity pulling the book down is exactly canceled
as shown in the figure.
by the normal force of the table pushing up on the
book. Aristotle would have denied that this was pos-
sible, because he believed that at any one moment an
object could have only one of two mutually exclusive
types of motion: natural motion (the tendency of the
book to fall to the ground, and resume its natural
place), and forced motion (the ability of another ob-
ject, such as the table, to move the book). According
to his theory, there could be nothing like the addi-
tion of forces, because the object being acted on was
only capable of “following orders” from one source at
a time. The incorrect Aristotelian point of view has Because of friction, it is possible to change any one
great intuitive appeal, and beginning physics stu- of the weights slightly without causing the ring to
dents tend to make Aristotelian statements such as, move. This is a potential source of systematic er-
“The table’s force overcomes the force of gravity,” rors, but you can eliminate the error completely by
as if the forces were having a contest, in which the the following method. Find out how much you can
victor annihilated the loser. increase or decrease each weight without causing the
ring to move. Within the range of values that don’t
34 Lab 10 The Force Vector

cause slipping, use the center of the range as your the magnitude of the sum of the forces is small com-
best value; with this amount of weight, there is no pared to the magnitudes of the individual forces.
friction at all in the pulley. The point here is not to
redo the entire experiment with a completely differ-
ent combination of weights — that would not tell Analysis
you anything about friction as a source of error,
Calculate the magnitude of vector sum of the forces
since even if there was no friction at all, it would be
on the ring, first graphically and then analytically.
possible for example to double all the weights and
Make sure the two methods give the same result. If
get an equilibrium. Once you’ve set each weight to
they do not, try measuring the x and y components
its friction-free value, leave it that way; by the time
off of your drawing and comparing them with the x
you’re done, you will have eliminated friction from
and y components you calculated analytically.
all four pulleys.
Estimate the possible random error in your final
sum.
Prelab Are your results consistent with theory, taking into
The point of the prelab questions is to make sure account the random errors involved?
P1 The weights go on weight holders that hang
from the string, and the weight holders are each 50
g. Criticize the following reasoning: “We don’t need
to count the mass of the weight holders, because it’s
the same on all four strings, so it cancels out.”
P2 Describe a typical scale that you might use for
drawing force vectors on a piece of paper, e.g., how
long might you choose to make a 1-N force? Assume
your masses are from 500 to 1500 grams.
P3 Graphically calculate the vector sums of the
two pairs of vectors shown below. As a check on
your results, you should find that the magnitudes of
the two sums are equal.
Self-Check
Do both a graphical calculation and an analytic cal-
culation in lab, without error analysis. Make sure
they give the same result. Do a rough check that
35
11 The Momentum Vector
Apparatus
photogate (PASCO) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
small steel and plastic balls of various masses 2/group
plastic rulers
protractor
scotch tape
small stands
extra rods
clamps
(The small stands, extra rods, and clamps are nec-

essary in order to get the photogate low enough.)
Goal
Test whether momentum is conserved in a collision
of two balls.
Introduction
Pool players have an intuitive feeling for conserva- The idea is to set up an off-center collision, as shown
tion of momentum: they can visualize the results of below, and measure the initial and final speeds of the
a collision of two pool balls in advance. They also balls using the photogate and the computer. The
know that certain shots are impossible. For instance, use of the photogate and the computer software that
there is no way to make the cue ball bounce back di- works with it is explained in Appendix 6. Since on
rectly from a collision with another ball (except by any given trial you can only use the photogate to
putting spin on it, which creates an external friction measure the speed of a single ball, you will have to
force with the felt). They understand that the angles reproduce the collision at least three times to mea-
are important, so without knowing it, they are doing sure the three speeds involved. Actually, you will
mental estimates involving momentum as a vector: want to measure each of the three speeds several
a quantity that has both magnitude and direction. times in order to get a good estimate of your ran-
dom errors.
In this lab, you will be studying collisions similar to
the collision of the cue ball with an initially station-
ary ball. One of the basic principles involved is the
conservation of momentum:
The Principle of Conservation of Momentum
No matter how a set of objects interact with each
other, as long as no external force is present, the
vector sum of their momenta is conserved. That is,
p1i + p2i + . . . = p1f + p2f + . . ., where the “. . . ”
means that if there are more than two objects in-
volved, all their momenta should be added like vec-
tors.
To reproduce the same initial speed for the projectile
The technique (ball 1), you can build a little ramp out of two plastic
36 Lab 11 The Momentum Vector

rulers taped together at a 90-degree angle. A block You will be putting the photogate in three different
of wood can be taped in the ramp at the top to keep positions to measure the three velocities. How far
them braced. The block of wood also serves as a from the collision should you place it? It should
convenient reference point: you can release the ball be as close as possible to the collision, because the
from the point where it touches the block. balls do gradually slow down as they roll, and you
want to know the speeds immediately before and
You should choose a completely asymmetrical setup:
after the collision. However, the balls bounce a little
two balls of different masses, and a collision in which
immediately after the collision, so don’t put the it
the projectile does not hit the target head-on.
so close to the collision that they are still bouncing
It is critical that you position the target ball at ex- when they go through it.
actly the same place every time. Marking the table
and placing the ball on the mark is not good enough.
The best technique is to put a piece of scotch tape Prelab
on the table and use a ball-point pen to make a tiny
impression in it for the target ball to sit in.
Tips you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
You want to avoid conditions for which any of the you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
speeds involved are too slow, because then the balls P1 Draw an example of a collision, showing the
tend to be accelerated, decelerated, or deflected by balls before and after it happens, in which |p1i | =
tiny bumps in the tabletop. If you notice the balls 0.020 kg · m/s, |p1f | = 0.010 kg · m/s, and |p2f | =
wandering and wavering as they roll, they are go- 0.010 kg · m/s, but momentum was not conserved.
ing too slow. Generally speaking, sufficiently high (As in the actual lab, the target ball starts at rest.)
speeds are achieved if the ramp is at least 7 cm high. Explain.
Using the heavier ball as the projectile helps to keep
the final speeds high. P2 If the magnitude of the initial momentum is the
same as the magnitude of the total final momentum,
A good way to test whether your speeds are sufficient does that mean momentum was conserved?
is to measure the angles at which the balls emerge
from the collision, and see if they are the same every
time, to within a tolerance of 5-10 degrees. If the Self-Check
angles are not reproducible to this level of variation,
then the balls are not going fast enough. Analyze your data without error analysis, and make
sure your graphical and analytical results are the
You will want to use vernier calipers to measure the same. Check whether momentum appeared to be at
diameters of the balls. Ask your instructor for help least approximately conserved.
if you don’t know how to read a vernier scale.
Note that at the instant of collision, the balls are
touching, but their centers are not at the same point. Analysis
This means you have to be careful about how you Test whether momentum was conserved, doing your
measure the angles. vector addition once using the analytic method and
If you did not position the photogate at the height of once using the graphical method. Take into account
the center of the ball whose speed you wanted to de- the random errors in your measurements.
termine, then the computation of the ball’s speed be-
comes complicated — don’t just divide the diameter
of the ball by the time from the computer. Discuss
this with your instructor once you have a working
setup.
You should have opposite signs for the components
of the balls’ final momenta in the direction perpen-
dicular to the projectile’s original direction of mo-
tion.
37
12 Torque
Apparatus Construct a setup like the one shown above. Avoid
any symmetry in your arrangement. There are four
meter stick with holes drilled in it . . . . . . . . 1/group forces acting on the meter stick:
spring scales, calibrated in newtons
FH = the weight hanging underneath
weights
string FM = Earth’s gravity on the meter stick itself
protractors FL = tension in the string on the left
hooks FR = tension in the string on the right
Each of these forces also produces a torque.

In order to determine whether the total force is zero,
Goal you will need enough raw data so that for each torque
Test whether the total force and torque on an object you can extract (1) the magnitude of the force vec-
at rest both equal zero. tor, and (2) the direction of the force vector. In order
to add up all the torques, you will have to choose an
axis of rotation, and collect enough raw data to be
Introduction able to determine for each force (3) the distance from
the axis to the point at which the force is applied to
It is not enough for a boat not to sink. It also must
the ruler, and (4) the angle between the force vector
not capsize. This is an example of a general fact
and the line connecting the axis with the point where
about physics, which is also well known to people
the force is applied. Note that the meter stick’s own
who overindulge in alcohol: if an object is to be in
weight can be though of as being applied at its center
a stable equilibrium at rest, it must not only have
of mass.
zero net force on it, to keep from picking up momen-
tum, but also zero net torque, to keep from acquiring You have a selection of spring scales, so use the right
angular momentum. one for the job — don’t use a 20 N scale to measure
0.8 newtons, because it will not be possible to read
it accurately. If you need to swap in a new spring
scale, don’t forget to calibrate it.
Since the analysis requires you to compute the to-
tal torque a second time using a different choice of
axis, you cannot neglect to measure any of the angles
involved.
Prelab
Observations P1 You have complete freedom in defining what
point is to be considered the axis of rotation — if
Weigh your meter stick before you do anything else;
one choice of axis causes the total torque to be zero,
they don’t all weigh the same amount.
then any other choice of axis will also cause the to-
For each spring scale, hang a known weight from it, tal torque to be zero. It is possible to simplify the
and adjust the calibration tab so that the scale gives analysis by choosing the axis so that one of the four
the correct result. torques is zero. Plan how you will do this.
38 Lab 12 Torque
P2 All the torques will be tending to cause rota-
tion in the same plane. You can therefore use plus
and minus signs to represent clockwise and counter-
clockwise torques. Choose which one you’ll call pos-
itive. Using your choice of axis, which of the four
torques, τH , τM , τL , and τR , will be negative, which
will be positive, and which will be zero?
P3 Suppose that in the figure above, the angle be-
tween the meter stick and the hanging weight is 80 ◦ ,
the mass of the hanging weight is 1 kg, and the mass
of the meter stick is 0.1 kg. If a student is then try-
ing to calculate the x components of the forces FM
and FH , why is it incorrect to say
FM ,x = (0.1 kg)(9.8 m/s2 )
and
FH,x = (1 kg)(9.8 m/s2 )(cos 80 ◦ )?
Analysis
Determine the total force and total torque on the
meter stick. For the forces, I think a graphical cal-
culation will be easier than a numerical one.
Finally, repeat your calculation of the total torque
using a different point as your axis. Although you’re
normally expected to do your analysis completely in-
dependently, for this lab it’s okay if you find the total
torque for one choice of axis, and your lab partners
do the calculation their own choices.
Error analysis is not required. For extra credit, you
can do error analysis for one of your total torques.
39
13 The Moment of Inertia
Apparatus on the simple rather than the complex. His law of
inertia was completely linear. In his view, all the
meter stick with hole in center . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group common examples of circular motion really involved
nail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group a force, which kept things from going straight. In
fulcrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group the case of a spinning top, for instance, Newton (a
100 g and 200 g slotted masses . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group confirmed atomist) would have visualized an atoms
duct tape in the top as being acted on by some kind of sticky
sliding bracket to go on force from the other atoms, which would keep it from
meter stick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group flying off straight. Linear motion was the simplest
U-shaped hook for hanging type, needing no forces to keep it going. Circular
weights from bracket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group motion was more complex, requiring a force to bend
computer with Vernier software the atoms’ trajectories into circles.
1/group photogate and adapter box . . . . . . .1/group
triple-beam balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1/group Even though circular motion is inherently more com-
Vernier calipers plicated than linear motion, some very close analo-
gies can be made between the two in the case where
an object is spinning rigidly. (An examples of non-
rigid rotation would be a hurricane, in which the
Goal inner parts complete a rotation more rapidly than
the outer parts.) In analogy to Newton’s first law,
Test the equation τtotal = Iα, which relates an ob- Ftotal = ma, we have
ject’s angular acceleration to its own moment of in-
ertia and to the total torque applied to it. τtotal = Iα ,
where the angular acceleration α replaces the linear
acceleration a, the total torque plays the role given
Introduction to the total force, and the moment of inertia I is
Newton’s first law, which states that motion in a used instead of the mass. In this lab, you are going
straight line goes on forever in the absence of a force, to release an unbalanced rotating system — a meter
was especially difficult for scientists to work out be- stick on an axle with weights attached to it — and
cause long-lasting circular motion seemed much more measure its angular acceleration in response to the
prevalent in the universe than long-lasting linear mo- nonzero gravitational torque on it.
tion. The sun, moon and stars appeared to move Every equation you learned for constant acceleration
in never-ending circular paths around the sky. A can also be adapted to the case of rotation with con-
spinning top could continue its motion for a much stant angular acceleration, simply by translating all
longer time than a book sliding across a table. René the variables. For instance, the equation vf2 = 2ax
Descartes (b. 1596) came close to stating a law of in- for an object accelerating from rest can be translated
ertia like Newton’s, but he thought that matter was into the valid rotational formula ωf2 = 2aθ.
made out of tiny spinning vortices, like whirlwinds
mr2 ,
P
of dust. Galileo, who among Newton’s predecessors The moment of inertia is defined as I =
came closest to stating a law of inertia, was also con- where m can be thought of as the mass of an indi-
fused by the issue of circular versus linear inertia. An vidual atom comprising the rotating body, and r is
advocate of the Copernican system, in which the ap- the distance of that atom from the axis of rotation.
parent rotation of the sun, stars and moon was due The word “moment” in “moment of inertia” does
to the Earth’s rotation, he knew that the apparently not refer to a moment in time, but is used instead
motionless ground, trees, and mountains around him in a more old-fashioned sense of “importance” or
must be moving in circles as the Earth turned. Was “weight,” as in “matters of great moment.” The
this because inertia naturally caused things to move idea is that the factor of r2 gives more importance
in circles? to the an atom that is far from the axis of rotation.
Newton, like other giants of science, saw how to focus Because the symbol I is used, there is a tendency
for students to refer to it as “inertia,” but inertia
40 Lab 13 The Moment of Inertia

is a different and nonquantitative concept, referring
to the tendency of objects to stay at rest or stay in
motion.
In practice, it is not practical to carry out a sum over
all the atoms. The object whose rotation you will
study in this lab will consist of a meter stick pivot-
ing at its center, with various weights hanging from
it in various places. Both the hanging weights and
the meter stick itself will contribute to the moment
of inertia. To a good approximation, each hanging
weight can be treated as if all its atoms were con-
centrated at its center. Calculus can also be used
to derive formulae for the moments of inertia of ob-
jects of various shapes, such as a sphere, a cylinder
rotating along its axis, etc. One such formula is
I = (1/12)M L2 for the moment of inertia of a rigid
rod rotating about an axis passing perpendicularly
through its center. You can use this formula as a
good approximation for the meter stick’s contribu-
tion to the moment of inertia, with L = 1 m. can be done by moving the low-mass sliding bracket.
What is less obvious that it also makes a difference
how high the weights are placed. That is, the center
of mass of the whole balanced setup must coincide
both vertically and horizontally with the nail. The
concept is shown in the figure above using a rectan-
gle in place of the actual apparatus. In (d), there
will always be a clockwise torque on the rectangle,
because the center of mass is to the right of the nail.
In (e), there is zero torque if the rectangle is ini-
tially released from this horizontal position, but the
equilibrium is unstable, because its center of mass is
above the axis of rotation. Our experiment depends
on the cancellation of the gravitational torques on
Preliminaries
everything but the extra weight, but in a case like
(e), this assumption would only be valid when the
The meter stick is supported on the fulcrum via a apparatus was initially released from horizontal. Later
nail through the hole in its center. You want to start in the motion, there would be an undesired and un-
by producing a balanced arrangement of weights at- known extra torque. Although it is visually obvious
tached to the meter stick, as in figure (a) above. The in this figure that the rectangle’s center of mass is
idea is that if you first balance this configuration too high, you can’t tell visually with the actual ap-
carefully, then you know that the net gravitational paratus. The way to tell if the center of mass is too
torque on it is zero. If you then hang another weight high is that if you tilt the meter stick a little bit
from the previously empty hanger, as in (b), then to the right, it immediately accelerates clockwise,
you know that the total torque simply equals the whereas if you tilt it a little to the left, it accelerates
torque produced by the earth’s gravitational force counterclockwise.
on the added weight.
In (f), we have a stable equilibrium. Again, there is
For ease of adjustment, you can use duct tape, wrapped an unknown, undesired torque unless the rectangle
sticky-side-out, to attach the slotted weights to the just happens to be horizontal. You can tell if you
meter stick. You can then balance your initial config- have this situation because the apparatus can swing
uration simply by sliding the weights around. Do not back and forth about its stable equilibrium position.
choose a symmetric setup, i.e., use unequal weights.
You want a neutral equilibrium, i.e., no matter what
The masses need to be slid to the left and right in angle you release it from, the meter stick just stays
order to achieve equilibrium, and a fine adjustment there.
41
Observations ∆θ. Measuring this angle accurately is there-
fore vital in order to get a good result. A
Now add the extra weight so that the meter stick protractor cannot measure an angle this small
is slightly unbalanced. The idea of this lab is to with sufficient accuracy. Use trigonometry to
release the meter stick and use the photogate to find determine this angle.
how quickly it is moving once it has rotated through
some angle, using the photogate to find the amount It’s easiest if you use radian measure through-
of time required for the tip of the meter stick to pass out. The equation τtotal = Iα is only true if α
through the photogate. From your measurement of is measured in radians/s2 .
∆t using the photogate, you can find ω = ∆θ/∆t,
which is an approximation to the meter stick’s final The sliding bracket and hook contribute both
angular velocity. Instructions for using the computer to the total torque and the moment of inertia,
software are given in appendix 6; you want the mode so you’ll have to weigh them.
for measuring how long the photogate was blocked.
Once you know the meter stick’s final value of ω, Prelab
you can extract the angular acceleration. This can
then be compared with the theoretical value of the The point of the prelab questions is to make sure
angular acceleration from τtotal = Iα. you understand what you’re doing, why you’re do-
Tips: you don’t know the answers, make sure to come to
You may want to put something under the ful- you’re just setting yourself up for failure in lab.
crum base to raise everything up higher. P1 Derive an equation for the experimental value
of the angular acceleration, expressed in terms of
Although the balanced configuration, with τtotal = quantities you will actually measure directly, includ-
0, still has τtotal = 0 no matter what angle it ing the quantities θ and ∆θ defined in the figure
is at, the torque exerted by the extra weight below. Note that this lab is exactly analogous to lab
does depend a little on what angle the meter 2, and many of the same techniques apply.
stick is at. This is because of the factor of
sin θ in the definition τ = rF sin θ. Since the
torque is not constant, the angular accelera-
tion is not constant, leading to complications.
You can avoid this problem by confining all
your measurements to a fairly small range of
positions near horizontal. As long as θ is fairly
close to 90 ◦ , sin θ is extremely close to 1, and
it is a good enough approximation to assume a
constant torque rF producing a constant an-
gular acceleration. For instance, as long as θ
is within 20 ◦ above or below horizontal, sin θ
changes by no more than 0.06.
P2 Why would it not be meaningful to try to deal
Although you want to work only with nearly with the meter stick’s velocity, rather than its angu-
horizontal positions of the meter stick so that lar velocity?
the torque is approximately constant, you also
need to make sure that the total angle tra-
versed by the meter stick is still reasonably Self-Check
large compared to the angle traversed while the Do all your analysis in lab.
meter stick is blocking the photogate. Other-
wise your measurement of ω = ∆θ/∆t will not
be a good approximation to the final instanta- Analysis
neous angular velocity.
Extract theoretical and experimental values of the
As you will find in your prelab, the angular ac- angular acceleration from your data, and compare
celeration depends on the square of the angle them.
42 Lab 13 The Moment of Inertia

No analysis of random errors is required, because the
main source of error is the systematic errors arising
from friction and the various approximations, such
as the assumption that sin θ is approximately equal
to 1.
43
14 Torque in Three Dimensions
Apparatus
metal hoop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
posts with clamps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/group
spring scales
vertical stand with leveling feet and clamps for me-
ter stick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
vertical stand for use with plumb bob . . . . . 1/group
meter stick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
hooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3/group
string
spirit level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
plumb bob . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
butcher paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1/group
protractors
Goal
Test the hypothesis that the total torque and total
force on an object are zero, for a system that cannot
be analyzed within a plane.
Observations
The basic idea here is to reenact lab 12 in three
dimensions, so that the r and F vectors are not con-
fined to a plane. To make things simple, you’ll use
a circular hoop as your object. By taking its center
as the axis, and suspending it from three strings at- sure each string is a single strand (not an oval loop),
tached at its circumference, you can make the mag- and that it’s long enough so that its projection down
nitudes of the r vectors all the same. Also, by lev- onto the horizontal plane is fairly long, and can have
eling the hoop with a spirit level you can make all its direction measured accurately. By locating two
the r vectors lie in the horizontal plane. The three points on the string accurately in three dimensions,
strings, however, should not be vertical; they should you can accurately determine the direction of the
point up and out at random angles. The whole ar- force. Note that the strings’ horizontal projections
rangement should not have any symmetry. There will not necessarily pass through the center of the
will be three force vectors for the three strings, plus hoop; that’s okay, and in fact there’s no easy way to
a downward force vector due to gravity. avoid it. To get the meter stick accurately vertical,
use the spirit level and the tripod of screws on the
You can use whatever measuring techniques you need
base of the stand. To locate the projection of the
in order to completely determine all the r and F vec-
ring, you can mark points on its circumference, then
tors in three dimensions, but the general approach
when you’re done lay it on the paper and trace its
that seemed to work well for me was to lay a large
outline.
sheet of butcher paper on the tabletop underneath
the apparatus, and project points on the apparatus I found it convenient to work in spherical coordi-
down onto the paper using the plumb bob. You can nates (r, θ, φ), where θ is an angle measured coun-
also measure the heights of points using the vertical terclockwise in the horizontal plane, and φ is an an-
meter stick. For convenience of measurement, make gle measured down from the vertical. For example,
all the r vectors of the points at which the strings
44 Lab 14 Torque in Three Dimensions

apply their forces have r equal to the radius of the
hoop, and φ = 90 ◦ . For the force vectors, you’ll
have (F , θF , φF ), where F is the magnitude of the
force in newtons, and, e.g., φF = 180 ◦ for the force
of gravity, and φF < 90 ◦ for the forces of the strings.
Analysis
Convert all four force vectors and all four r vectors
in Cartesian coordinates. Find the total force by
vector addition. Compute the four torque vectors
using the vector cross product, and find the total
torque by vector addition.
45
Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups
Lab reports must be three pages or less, not counting If this is a lab that has just one important numerical
your raw data. The format should be as follows: result (or maybe two or three of them), put them
in your abstract, with error bars where appropriate.
Title
There should normally be no more than two to four
Raw data — Keep actual observations separate from numbers here. Do not recapitulate your raw data
what you later did with them. here — this is for your final results.
These are the results of the measurements you take
If you’re presenting a final result with error bars,
down during the lab, hence they come first. You
make sure that the number of significant figures is
should clearly mark the beginning and end of your
consistent with your error bars. For example, if you
raw data, so I don’t have to sort through many pages
write a result as 323.54 ± 6 m/s, that’s wrong. Your
to find your actual presentation of your work, below.
error bars say that you could be off by 6 in the ones’
Write your raw data directly in your lab book; don’t
place, so the 5 in the tenths’ place and the four in
write them on scratch paper and recopy them later.
the hundredths’ place are completely meaningless.
Don’t use pencil. The point is to separate facts from
opinions, observations from inferences. If you’re presenting a number in scientific notation,
with error bars, don’t do it like this
Procedure — Did you have to create your own
methods for getting some of the raw data?
Do not copy down the procedure from the manual. 1.234 × 10−89 m/s ± 3 × 10−92 m/s ,
In this section, you only need to explain any meth-
ods you had to come up with on your own, or cases
where the methods suggested in the handout didn’t do it like this
work and you had to do something different. Do not
discuss how you did your calculations here, just how (1.234 ± 0.003) × 10−89 m/s ,
you got your raw data.
Abstract — What did you find out? Why is it im- so that we can see easily which digit of the result the
portant? error bars apply to.
The “abstract” of a scientific paper is a short para-
graph at the top that summarizes the experiment’s Justification and Reasoning — Convince me of
results in a few sentences. If your results deviated what you claimed in your abstract.
from the ideal equations, don’t be afraid to say so. Cconvince me that the statements you made about
After all, this is real life, and many of the equa- your results in the abstract follow logically from your
tions we learn are only approximations, or are only data. This will typically involve both calculations
valid in certain circumstances. However, (1) if you and logical arguments. Continuing the debate meta-
simply mess up, it is your responsibility to realize phor, if your abstract said the U.S. should have free
it in lab and do it again, right; (2) you will never trade with China, this is the rest of the debate, where
get exact agreement with theory, because measure- you convince me, based on data and logic, that we
ments are not perfectly exact — the important issue should have free trade.
is whether your results agree with theory to roughly In your calculations, the more clearly you show what
within the error bars. you did, the easier it is for me to give you partial
The abstract comes first in your writeup, but you’ll credit if there is something wrong with your final re-
write it last, so leave a little space for it. sult. If you have a long series of similar calculations,
you may just show one as a sample. If your prelab
The abstract is not a statement of what you hoped involved deriving equations that you will need, re-
to find out. It’s a statement of what you did find peat them here without the derivation. Try to lay
out. It’s like the brief statement at the beginning out complicated calculations in a logical way, go-
of a debate: “The U.S. should have free trade with ing straight down the page and using indentation to
China.” It’s not this: “In this debate, we will discuss make it easy to understand. When doing algebra,
whether the U.S. should have free trade with China.” try to keep everything in symbolic form until the
very end, when you will plug in numbers.
46 Lab Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups

Model Lab Writeup the cannon ball leading at the bottom by a slight
margin (1 hand’s breadth), but we could not be sure.
Comparison of Heavy and Light Falling Objects It is possible that the musket ball was just notice-
- Galileo Galilei ably affected by air resistance. In any case, the Aris-
totelian theory is clearly wrong, since it predicts that
Raw Data the cannon ball, which was 400 times heavier, would
(Galileo’s original, somewhat messy notes go here.) have taken one 400th the time to hit the ground.
He does not recopy the raw data to make them look
nicer, or mix calculations with raw data.
Procedure
We followed the procedure in the lab manual with
the following additions: (1) To make sure both ob-
jects fell at the same time, we put them side by side
on a board and then tipped the board. (2) We waited
until there was no wind.
Abstract
We dropped a cannon ball weighing two hundred
pounds and a musket ball weighing half a pound si-
multaneously from the same height. Both hit the
ground at nearly the same time. This contradicts
Aristotle’s theory that heavy objects always fall faster
than light ones.
height of drop = 200 ± 4 cubits

amount by which cannon
ball was ahead at the bottom < 1 hand’s breadth
Justification and Reasoning

From a point 100 cubits away from the base of the
tower, the top was at a 63 ◦ angle above horizontal.
The height of the tower was therefore
100 cubits × tan 63 ◦ = 200 cubits.

We estimated the accuracy of the 100-cubit horizon-
tal measurement to be ±2 cubits, with random errors
mainly from the potholes in the street, which made
it difficult to lay the cubit-stick flat. If it was 102
cubits instead of 100, our result for the height of the
tower would have been 204 cubits, so our error bars
on the height are ±4 cubits.
It is common knowledge that a feather falls more
slowly than a stone, but our experiment shows that
heavy objects do not always fall much more rapidly.
We do not have any data on feathers, but we sug-
gest that extremely light objects like feathers are
strongly affected by air resistance, which would be
nearly negligible for a cannonball. We think we saw
47
Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis
No measurement is perfectly ex- itations of the measuring devices.
act. Another important reason for stating results with er-

ror bars is that other people may use your measure-
One of the most common misconceptions about sci- ment for purposes you could not have anticipated.
ence is that science is “exact.” It is always a strug- If they are to use your result intelligently, they need
gle to get beginning science students to believe that to have some idea of how accurate it was.
no measurement is perfectly correct. They tend to
think that if a measurement is a little off from the
“true” result, it must be because of a mistake — if Error bars are not absolute limits.
a pro had done it, it would have been right on the
mark. Not true! Error bars are not absolute limits. The true value
may lie outside the error bars. If I got a better scale I
What scientists can do is to estimate just how far might find that the dog’s weight is 51.3±0.1 pounds,
off they might be. This type of estimate is called inside my original error bars, but it’s also possible
an error bar, and is expressed with the ± symbol, that the better result would be 48.7 ± 0.1 pounds.
read “plus or minus.” For instance, if I measure my Since there’s always some chance of being off by a
dog’s weight to be 52 ± 2 pounds, I am saying that somewhat more than your error bars, or even a lot
my best estimate of the weight is 52 pounds, and I more than your error bars, there is no point in be-
think I could be off by roughly 2 pounds either way. ing extremely conservative in an effort to make ab-
The term “error bar” comes from the conventional solutely sure the true value lies within your stated
way of representing this range of uncertainty of a range. When a scientist states a measurement with
measurement on a graph, but the term is also used error bars, she is not saying “If the true value is
when no graph is involved. outside this range, I deserve to be drummed out of
Some very good scientific work results in measure- the profession.” If that was the case, then every sci-
ments that nevertheless have large error bars. For entist would give ridiculously inflated error bars to
instance, the best measurement of the age of the uni- avoid having her career ended by one fluke out of
verse is now 15 ± 5 billion years. That may not seem hundreds of published results. What scientists are
like wonderful precision, but the people who did the communicating to each other with error bars is a
measurement knew what they were doing. It’s just typical amount by which they might be off, not an
that the only available techniques for determining upper limit.
the age of the universe are inherently poor. The important thing is therefore to define error bars
Even when the techniques for measurement are very in a standard way, so that different people’s state-
precise, there are still error bars. For instance, elec- ments can be compared on the same footing. By
trons act like little magnets, and the strength of a convention, it is usually assumed that people esti-
very weak magnet such as an individual electron is mate their error bars so that about two times out of
customarily measured in units called Bohr magne- three, their range will include the true value (or the
tons. Even though the magnetic strength of an elec- results of a later, more accurate measurement with
tron is one of the most precisely measured quantities an improved technique).
ever, the best experimental value still has error bars:
1.0011596524 ± 0.0000000002 Bohr magnetons.
Random and systematic errors.
There are several reasons why it is important in sci-
entific work to come up with a numerical estimate Suppose you measure the length of a sofa with a
of your error bars. If the point of your experiment tape measure as well as you can, reading it off to
is to test whether the result comes out as predicted the nearest millimeter. If you repeat the measure-
by a theory, you know there will always be some ment again, you will get a different answer. (This
disagreement, even if the theory is absolutely right. is assuming that you don’t allow yourself to be psy-
You need to know whether the measurement is rea- chologically biased to repeat your previous answer,
sonably consistent with the theory, or whether the and that 1 mm is about the limit of how well you
discrepancy is too great to be explained by the lim- can see.) If you kept on repeating the measurement,
48 Lab Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis

you might get a list of values that looked like this:
203.1 cm 203.4 202.8 203.3 203.2
203.4 203.1 202.9 202.9 203.1
Variations of this type are called random errors, be-
cause the result is different every time you do the
measurement.
The effects of random errors can be minimized by av-
eraging together many measurements. Some of the
measurements included in the average are too high,
and some are too low, so the average tends to be
better than any individual measurement. The more
measurements you average in, the more precise the
average is. The average of the above measurements
is 203.1 cm. Averaging together many measurements
cannot completely eliminate the random errors, but
it can reduce them.
On the other hand, what if the tape measure was a
little bit stretched out, so that your measurements
always tended to come out too low by 0.3 cm? That
would be an example of a systematic error. Since
the systematic error is the same every time, aver-
aging didn’t help us to get rid of it. You probably
had no easy way of finding out exactly the amount
of stretching, so you just had to suspect that there
might a systematic error due to stretching of the
tape measure.
Some scientific writers make a distinction between
the terms “accuracy” and “precision.” A precise
measurement is one with small random errors, while
an accurate measurement is one that is actually close
to the true result, having both small random errors
and small systematic errors. Personally, I find the
distinction is made more clearly with the more mem-
orable terms “random error” and “systematic error.”
The ± sign used with error bars normally implies
that random errors are being referred to, since ran-
dom errors could be either positive or negative, whereas
miles by gallons, to get your final result. When you
systematic errors would always be in the same direc-
communicate your result to someone else, they are
tion.
completely uninterested in how accurately you mea-
sured the number of miles and how accurately you
measured the gallons. They simply want to know
The goal of error analysis how accurate your final result was. Was it 22 ± 2
Very seldom does the final result of an experiment mi/gal, or 22.137 ± 0.002 mi/gal?
come directly off of a clock, ruler, gauge or meter.
Of course the accuracy of the final result is ulti-
It is much more common to have raw data consist-
mately based on and limited by the accuracy of your
ing of direct measurements, and then calculations
raw data. If you are off by 0.2 gallons in your mea-
based on the raw data that lead to a final result.
surement of the amount of gasoline, then that amount
As an example, if you want to measure your car’s
of error will have an effect on your final result. We
gas mileage, your raw data would be the number of
say that the errors in the raw data “propagate” through
gallons of gas consumed and the number of miles
the calculations. When you are requested to do “er-
you went. You would then do a calculation, dividing
ror analysis” in a lab writeup, that means that you
49
are to use the techniques explained below to deter- Method #2: Repeated Measurements and the Two-
mine the error bars on your final result. There are Thirds Rule
two sets of techniques you’ll need to learn: If you take repeated measurements of the same thing,
then the amount of variation among the numbers can
techniques for finding the accuracy of your raw tell you how big the random errors were. This ap-
data proach has an advantage over guessing your random
techniques for using the error bars on your raw errors, since it automatically takes into account all
data to infer error bars on your final result the sources of random error, even ones you didn’t
know were present.
Roughly speaking, the measurements of the length
Estimating random errors in raw of the sofa were mostly within a few mm of the av-
data erage, so that’s about how big the random errors
were. But let’s make sure we are stating our error
We now examine three possible techniques for es- bars according to the convention that the true result
timating random errors in your original measure- will fall within our range of errors about two times
ments, illustrating them with the measurement of out of three. Of course we don’t know the “true”
the length of the sofa. result, but if we sort out our list of measurements
in order, we can get a pretty reasonable estimate of
Method #1: Guess
our error bars by taking half the range covered by
If you’re measuring the length of the sofa with a the middle two thirds of the list. Sorting out our list
metric tape measure, then you can probably make a of ten measurements of the sofa, we have
reasonable guess as to the precision of your measure-
202.8 cm 202.9 202.9 203.1 203.1
ments. Since the smallest division on the tape mea-
203.1 203.2 203.3 203.4 203.4
sure is one millimeter, and one millimeter is also near
the limit of your ability to see, you know you won’t Two thirds of ten is about 6, and the range covered
be doing better than ± 1 mm, or 0.1 cm. Making al- by the middle six measurements is 203.3 cm - 202.9
lowances for errors in getting tape measure straight cm, or 0.4 cm. Half that is 0.2 cm, so we’d esti-
and so on, we might estimate our random errors to mate our error bars as ±0.2 cm. The average of the
be a couple of millimeters. measurements is 203.1 cm, so your result would be
stated as 203.1 ± 0.2 cm.
Guessing is fine sometimes, but there are at least two
ways that it can get you in trouble. One is that stu- One common mistake when estimating random er-
dents sometimes have too much faith in a measuring rors by repeated measurements is to round off all
device just because it looks fancy. They think that your measurements so that they all come out the
a digital balance must be perfectly accurate, since same, and then conclude that the error bars were
unlike a low-tech balance with sliding weights on it, zero. For instance, if we’d done some overenthu-
it comes up with its result without any involvement siastic rounding of our measurements on the sofa,
by the user. That is incorrect. No measurement is rounding them all off to the nearest cm, every single
perfectly accurate, and if the digital balance only number on the list would have been 203 cm. That
displays an answer that goes down to tenths of a wouldn’t mean that our random errors were zero!
gram, then there is no way the random errors are The same can happen with digital instruments that
any smaller than about a tenth of a gram. automatically round off for you. A digital balance
might give results rounded off to the nearest tenth of
Another way to mess up is to try to guess the error
a gram, and you may find that by putting the same
bars on a piece of raw data when you really don’t
object on the balance again and again, you always
have enough information to make an intelligent esti-
get the same answer. That doesn’t mean it’s per-
mate. For instance, if you are measuring the range
fectly precise. Its precision is no better than about
of a rifle, you might shoot it and measure how far
±0.1 g.
the bullet went to the nearest centimeter, conclud-
ing that your random errors were only ±1 cm. In Method #3: Repeated Measurements and the Stan-
reality, however, its range might vary randomly by dard Deviation
fifty meters, depending on all kinds of random fac-
The most widely accepted method for measuring er-
tors you don’t know about. In this type of situation,
ror bars is called the standard deviation. Here’s how
you’re better off using some other method of esti-
the method works, using the sofa example again.
mating your random errors.

(1) Take the average of the measurements. Probability of deviations
average = 203.1 cm You can see that although 0.2 cm is a good figure
for the typical size of the deviations of the mea-
(2) Find the difference, or “deviation,” of each measurements of the length of the sofa from the aver-
surement from the average. age, some of the deviations are bigger and some are
−0.3 cm −0.2 −0.2 0.0 0.0 smaller. Experience has shown that the following
0.0 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.3 probability estimates tend to hold true for how fre-
quently deviations of various sizes occur:
(3) Take the square of each deviation.
0.09 cm2 0.04 0.04 0.00 0.00 < 1 standard deviation about 2 times out of 3
0.00 0.01 0.01 0.09 0.09
1-2 standard deviations about 1 time out of 4
(4) Average together all the squared deviations.
2-3 standard deviations about 1 time out of 20
average = 0.04 cm2
3-4 standard deviations about 1 in 500
(5) Take the square root. This is the standard devi- 4-5 standard deviations about 1 in 16,000
ation.
standard deviation = 0.2 cm > 5 standard deviations about 1 in 1,700,000
If we’re using the symbol x for the length of the
couch, then the result for the length of the couch
would be stated as x = 203.1 ± 0.2 cm, or x = 203.1
cm and σx = 0.2 cm. Since the Greek letter sigma
(σ) is used as a symbol for the standard deviation, a
standard deviation is often referred to as “a sigma.”
Step (3) may seem somewhat mysterious. Why not
just skip it? Well, if you just went straight from
step (2) to step (4), taking a plain old average of
the deviations, you would find that the average is
zero! The positive and negative deviations always
cancel out exactly. Of course, you could just take The probability of various sizes of deviations, shown
absolute values instead of squaring the deviations. graphically. Areas under the bell curve correspond to
The main advantage of doing it the way I’ve outlined probabilities. For example, the probability that the mea-
above are that it is a standard method, so people will surement will deviate from the truth by less than one stan-
dard deviation (±1σ) is about 34 × 2 = 68%, or about 2
know how you got the answer. (Another advantage
out of 3. (J. Kemp, P. Strandmark, Wikipedia.)
is that the standard deviation as I’ve described it
has certain nice mathematical properties.) Example: How significant?
A common mistake when using the standard devi- In 1999, astronomers Webb et al. claimed to have
ation technique is to take too few measurements. found evidence that the strength of electrical forces in
For instance, someone might take only two measure- the ancient universe, soon after the big bang, was slightly
weaker than it is today. If correct, this would be the first
ments of the length of the sofa, and get 203.4 cm
example ever discovered in which the laws of physics
and 203.4 cm. They would then infer a standard de- changed over time. The difference was very small, 5.7±
viation of zero, which would be unrealistically small 1.0 parts per million, but still highly statistically signifi-
because the two measurements happened to come cant. Dividing, we get (5.7 − 0)/1.0 = 5.7 for the num-
out the same. ber of standard deviations by which their measurement
was different from the expected result of zero. Looking
In the following material, I’ll use the term “stan-
at the table above, we see that if the true value really
dard deviation” as a synonym for “error bar,” but was zero, the chances of this happening would be less
that does not imply that you must always use the than one in a million. In general, five standard devia-
standard deviation method rather than the guessing tions (“five sigma”) is considered the gold standard for
method or the 2/3 rule. statistical significance.
There is a utility on the class’s web page for calcu- However, there is a twist to this story that shows how
lating standard deviations. statistics always have to be taken with a grain of salt.
51
In 2004, Chand et al. redid the measurement by a
more precise technique, and found that the change was
0.6 ± 0.6 parts per million. This is only one standard
deviation away from the expected value of 0, which
should be interpreted as being statistically consistent
with zero. If you measure something, and you think
you know what the result is supposed to be theoret-
ically, then one standard deviation is the amount you
typically expect to be off by — that’s why it’s called
the “standard” deviation. Moreover, the Chand result
is wildly statistically inconsistent with the Webb result
(see the example on page 55), which means that one
experiment or the other is a mistake. Most likely Webb
at al. underestimated their random errors, or perhaps
there were systematic errors in their experiment that
they didn’t realize were there.
Precision of an average
We decided that the standard deviation of our mea-
surements of the length of the couch was 0.2 cm,
i.e., the precision of each individual measurement
was about 0.2 cm. But I told you that the average,
203.1 cm, was more precise than any individual mea-
surement. How precise is the average? The answer
is that the standard deviation of the average equals
standard deviation of one measurement
√ .
number of measurements
(An example on page 54 gives the reasoning that
leads to the square root.) That means that you can
theoretically measure anything to any desired preci-
sion, simply by averaging together enough measure-
ments. In reality, no matter how small you make
your random error, you can’t get rid of systematic er-
rors by averaging, so after a while it becomes point-
less to take any more measurements.

53
Appendix 3: Propagation of Errors
Propagation of the error from a nificant errors in the density. The following more
general method can be applied in such cases:
single variable
(1) Change one of the raw measurements, say m, by
In the previous appendix we looked at techniques one standard deviation, and see by how much the
for estimating the random errors of raw data, but final result, ρ, changes. Use the symbol Qm for the
now we need to know how to evaluate the effects of absolute value of that change.
those random errors on a final result calculated from
the raw data. For instance, suppose you are given a m = 1.658 g gave ρ = 2.690 g/cm3
cube made of some unknown material, and you are m = 1.661 g gives ρ = 2.695 g/cm3
asked to determine its density. Density is defined Qm = change in ρ = 0.005 g/cm3
as ρ = m/v (ρ is the Greek letter “rho”), and the
volume of a cube with edges of length b is v = b3 , so (2) Repeat step (1) for the other raw measurements.
the formula b = 0.851 cm gave ρ = 2.690 g/cm3
ρ = m/b3 b = 0.852 cm gives ρ = 2.681 g/cm3
will give you the density if you measure the cube’s Qb = change in ρ = 0.009 g/cm3
mass and the length of its sides. Suppose you mea- (3) The error bars on ρ are given by the formula
sure the mass very accurately as m = 1.658±0.003 g,
q
but you know b = 0.85±0.06 cm with only two digits
σ ρ = Q2m + Q2b ,
of precision. Your best value for ρ is 1.658 g/(0.85 cm)3 =
2.7 g/cm3 .
yielding σρ = 0.01 g/cm3 . Intuitively, the idea here
How can you figure out how precise this value for ρ is that if our result could be off by an amount Qm
is? We’ve already made sure not to keep more than because of an error in m, and by Qb because of b,
twosignificant figures for ρ, since the less accurate then if the two errors were in the same direction, we
piece of raw data had only two significant figures. might by off by roughly |Qm | + |Qb |. However, it’s
We expect the last significant figure to be somewhat equally likely that the two errors would be in oppo-
uncertain, but we don’t yet know how uncertain. A site directions,
p and at least partially cancel. The ex-
simple method for this type of situation is simply to pression Q2m + Q2b gives an answer that’s smaller
change the raw data by one sigma, recalculate the than Qm + Qb , representing the fact that the cancel-
result, and see how much of a change occurred. In lation might happen.
this example, we add 0.06 cm to b for comparison.
The final result is ρ = 2.69 ± 0.01 g/cm3 .
b = 0.85 cm gave ρ = 2.7 g/cm3
Example: An average
b = 0.91 cm gives ρ = 2.0 g/cm3 On page 52 I claimed that averaging a bunch of mea-
The resulting change in the density was 0.7 g/cm3 , surements reduces the error bars by the square root of
so that is our estimate for how much it could have the number of measurements. We can now see that
this is a special case of propagation of errors.
been off by:
For example, suppose Alice measures the circumfer-
ρ = 2.7 ± 0.7 g/cm3 . ence c of a guinea pig’s waist to be 10 cm, Using the
guess method, she estimates that her error bars are
about ±1 cm (worse than the normal normal ∼ 1 mm
Propagation of the error from sev- error bars for a tape measure, because the guinea pig
was squirming). Bob then measures the same thing,
eral variables and gets 12 cm. The average is computed as
What about the more general case in which no one
A+B
piece of raw data is clearly the main source of error? c = ,
2
For instance, suppose we get a more accurate mea-
surement of the edge of the cube, b = 0.851 ± 0.001 where A is Alice’s measurement, and B is Bob’s, giving
cm. In percentage terms, the accuracies of m and 11 cm. If Alice had been off by one standard devia-
b are roughly comparable, so both can cause sig- tion (1 cm), it would have changed the average by 0.5
54 Lab Appendix 3: Propagation of Errors

cm, so we have QA = 0.5 cm, and likewisep QB = 0.5
cm. Combining these, we find σc = QA2 + QB2 = 0.7
√
cm, which is simply (1.0 cm)/ 2. The final result is
c = (11.0 ± 0.7) cm. (This violates the usual rule for
significant figures, which is that the final result should
have no more sig figs than the least precise piece of
data that went into the calculation. That’s okay, be-
cause the sig fig rules are just a quick and dirty way
of doing propagation of errors. We’ve done real propa-
gation of errors in this example, and it turns out that the
error is in the first decimal place, so the 0 in that place
is entitled to hold its head high as a real sig fig, albeit a
relatively imprecise one with an uncertainty of ±7.)
Example: The difference between two measurements
In the example on page 51, we saw that two groups
of scientists measured the same thing, and the results
were W = 5.7 ± 1.0 for Webb et al. and C = 0.6 ± 0.6
for Chand et al. It’s of interest to know whether the
difference between their two results is small enough to
be explained by random errors, or so big that it couldn’t
possibly have happened by chance, indicating that some-
one messed up. The figure shows each group’s results,
with error bars, on the number line. We see that the two
sets of error bars don’t overlap with one another, but er-
ror bars are not absolute limits, so it’s perfectly possible
to have non-overlapping error bars by chance, but the
gap between the error bars is very large compared to
the error bars themselves, so it looks implausible that
the results could be statistically consistent with one an-
other. I’ve tried to suggest this visually with the shading
underneath the data-points.
To get a sharper statistical test, we can calculate the

difference d between the two results,
d =W −C ,
which is 5.1. Since the operation is simply the subtrac-

tion of the two numbers, an error in either input simply
causes an error in the output that is of the same size.
Therefore pwe have QW = 1.0 and QC = 0.6, resulting
2
in σd = QW + QC2 = 1.2. We find that the difference
between the two results is d = 5.1 ± 1.2, which differs
from zero by 5.1/1.2 ≈ 4 standard deviations. Looking
at the table on page 51, we see that the chances that
d would be this big by chance are extremely small, less
than about one in ten thousand. We can conclude to a
high level of statistical confidence that the two groups’
measurements are inconsistent with one another, and
that one group is simply wrong.
55
Appendix 4: Graphing
Review of Graphing Type in your x values in the first column, and
your y values in the second column. For sci-
Many of your analyses will involve making graphs. entific notation, do, e.g., 5.2e-7 to represent
A graph can be an efficient way of presenting data 5.2 × 10−7 .
visually, assuming you include all the information
needed by the reader to interpret it. That means
labeling the axes and indicating the units in paren- Select those two columns using the mouse.
theses, as in the example. A title is also helpful.
Make sure that distances along the axes correctly
represent the differences in the quantity being plot- From the Insert menu, do Chart.
ted. In the example, it would not have been correct
to space the points evenly in the horizontal direction,
because they were not actually measured at equally When it offers you various styles of graphs to
spaced points in time. choose from, choose the icon that shows a scat-
ter plot, with dots on it (XY Chart).
Adjust the scales so the actual data on the plot

is as big as possible, eliminating wasted space.
To do this, right-click anywhere on the axis,
choose the Scale tab, uncheck Automatic, and
put in the lower and upper limits you want.
Fitting a Straight Line to a Graph

by Hand
Often in this course you will end up graphing some
data points, fitting a straight line through them with
a ruler, and extracting the slope.
In this example, panel (a) shows the data, with error
bars on each data point. Panel (b) shows a best
Graphing on a Computer fit, drawn by eye with a ruler. The slope of this
Making graphs by hand in your lab notebook is fine, best fit line is 100 cm/s. Note that the slope should
but in some cases you may find it saves you time to be extracted from the line itself, not from two data
do graphs on a computer. For computer graphing, points. The line is more reliable than any pair of
I recommend OpenOffice, which is free, open-source individual data points.
software. It’s installed on the computers in rooms In panel (c), a “worst believable fit” line has been
416 and 418. Because OpenOffice is free, you can drawn, which is as different in slope as possible from
download it and put it on your own computer at the best fit, while still pretty much staying consis-
home without paying money. If you already know tent the data (going through or close to most of the
Excel, it’s very similar — you almost can’t tell it’s error bars). Its slope is 60 cm/s. We can therefore
a different program. estimate that the precision of our slope is +40 cm/s.
Here’s a brief rundown on using OpenOffice: There is a tendency when drawing a “worst believ-
able fit” line to draw instead an “unbelievably crazy
On Windows, go to the Start menu and choose fit” line, as in panel (d). The line in panel (d), with
Programs, OpenOffice.org, and Calc. On Linux, a very small slope, is just not believable compared
do Applications, Office, OpenOffice.org, Spread- to the data — it is several standard deviations away
sheet. from most of the data points.
56 Lab Appendix 4: Graphing

data points. A dialog box will come up. Select the
Statistics tab, and under “Regression curves,” se-
lect the icon showing a line being fit to some data.
This will cause the line to be drawn on your graph.
To display the equation of the line, double-click on
the graph so that it’s surrounded by a gray border;
then right-click on the line, and do Insert Regres-
sion Curve Equation. By default your equation will
only have the slope and y-intercept shown with three
sig figs; if you need more precision, double-click on
the graph so it’s outlined in gray, right-click on the
equation, do Object Properties, Numbers, Scientific,
and add more zeroes after the decimal place under
Format code.
How accurate is your slope? A method for getting
error bars on the slope is to artificially change one
of your data points to reflect your estimate of how
much it could have been off, and then redo the fit
and find the new slope. The change in the slope
tells you the error in the slope that results from the
error in this data-point. You can then repeat this
for the other points and proceed as in appendix 3.
In some cases, such as the absolute zero lab and the
photoelectric effect lab, it’s very hard to tell how
accurate your raw data are a priori ; in these labs,
you can use the typical amount of deviation of the
points from the line as an estimate of their accuracy.
Fitting a Straight Line to a Graph

on a Computer
It’s also possible to fit a straight line to a graph using
computer software such as OpenOffice. E.g., lab ??
(the hydrogen atom) is a high-precision lab, and it’s
not possible to get a sufficiently accurate result by
hand.
To do this in OpenOffice, double-click on one of your
57
Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data
For many people, it is hard to imagine how scientists It’s fairly easy to figure out what’s going on just
originally came up with all the equations that can by staring at the numbers a little. Every time you
now be found in textbooks. This appendix explains increase the height of the animal by a factor of 10, its
one method for finding equations to describe data food consumption goes up by a factor of 100. This
from an experiment. implies that f must be proportional to the square of
h, or, displaying the proportionality constant k = 3
explicitly,
Linear and nonlinear relationships f = 3h2 .
When two variables x and y are related by an equa-
tion of the form
Use of logarithms
y = cx ,
Now we have found c = 3 and p = 2 by inspection,
where c is a constant (does not depend on x or y), but that would be much more difficult to do if these
we say that a linear relationship exists between x weren’t all round numbers. A more generally appli-
and y. As an example, a harp has many strings of cable method to use when you suspect a power-law
different lengths which are all of the same thickness relationship is to take logarithms of both variables.
and made of the same material. If the mass of a It doesn’t matter at all what base you use, as long as
string is m and its length is L, then the equation you use the same base for both variables. Since the
data above were increasing by powers of 10, we’ll use
m = cL logarithms to the base 10, but personally I usually
just use natural logs for this kind of thing.
will hold, where c is the mass per unit length, with log10 h log10 f
units of kg/m. Many quantities in the physical world shrew 0 0.48
are instead related in a nonlinear fashion, i.e., the rat 1 2.48
relationship does not fit the above definition of lin- capybara 2 4.48
earity. For instance, the mass of a steel ball bearing
is related to its diameter by an equation of the form This is a big improvement, because differences are
so much simpler to work mentally with than ratios.
m = cd3 , The difference between each successive value of h
is 1, while f increases by 2 units each time. The
where c is the mass per unit volume, or density, of fact that the logs of the f 0 s increase twice as quickly
steel. Doubling the diameter does not double the is the same as saying that f is proportional to the
mass, it increases it by a factor of eight. square of h.
Power laws Log-log plots

Both examples above are of the general mathemati- Even better, the logarithms can be interpreted visu-
cal form ally using a graph, as shown on the next page. The
y = cxp , slope of this type of log-log graph gives the power
p. Although it is also possible to extract the pro-
which is known as a power law. In the case of a portionality constant, c, from such a graph, the pro-
linear relationship, p = 1. Consider the (made-up) portionality constant is usually much less interesting
experimental data shown in the table. than p. For instance, we would suspect that if p = 2
h=height of rodent f =food eaten per for rodents, then it might also equal 2 for frogs or
at the shoulder day (g) ants. Also, p would be the same regardless of what
(cm) units we used to measure the variables. The con-
shrew 1 3 stant c, however, would be different if we used dif-
rat 10 300 ferent units, and would also probably be different for
capybara 100 30,000 other types of animals.
58 Lab Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data

59
Appendix 6: Using the Photogate
The photogate Using the data
The photogate is a U-shaped thing about 10 cm Often you may find that the software rounds off too
across, with an invisible infrared beam going across severely. For instance, when you’re in the mode for
the gap of the U, like the infrared beam of a TV re- measuring how long the photogate was blocked, you
mote control. When something blocks the beam, an want more than the three decimal places it offers by
electrical signal is sent through a wire to the com- default in the Delta-T column. To fix this, double-
puter. We will use the photogate by sending moving click on the title of the Delta-T column, and select
objects through it. The computer tells you for how a greater number of significant figures.
long the photogate was blocked, allowing you to cal-
culate the speed of the object as it passed through.
Plug the photogate into the DG1 plug on the inter-
face box.
Using the software

If you’re using the ULI interface (beige box), use
Logger Pro 2, and make sure the interface box is
turned on before you boot up the computer.
If you’re using the USB interface, use Logger Pro 3.
From the Start menu at the lower left corner of the
screen, run Logger Pro (in Programs>Vernier Soft-
ware). It asks for permission to scan for the right
port — say OK. (If it complains that it can’t find the
port, you may be able to fix the problem if you quit
Logger Pro, power the interface off and on again,
and then get back in Logger Pro and try again.)
The next step depends on what mode you are using
the software in.
Using the software in different modes

For various labs, there will be three different modes
in which we’ll use the software. From the File menu,
do Open, and locate the file you need:
Mode for measuring how long the photogate

was blocked: Probes & Sensors > Photogate
> One Gate Timer
Mode for measuring the time between two in-
terruptions of the photogate: ...
Mode for measuring the period of a pendulum:
Probes & Sensors > Photogate > Pendulum
If there is no button for collecting data, it’s because

the interface box wasn’t turned on when you booted
up. Reboot.
60 Lab Appendix 6: Using the Photogate

61

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Lab Manual for Physics 221

6 Lab 1 Conservation Laws

8 Lab 1 Conservation Laws

Notes For Next Week

Rules and Organization for

air track (small)

10 Lab 2 Conservation of Energy

You’ll use the photogates again in lab 8, so make

12 Lab 3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field

The surface the balls are dropping onto has

14 Lab 3 The Earth’s Gravitational Field

16 Lab 4 Absolute Zero

C Measurement of interactions between two mag-

1 There are two reasons why it wouldn’t make sense to find

different distances that produced the same angle. First, you

22 Lab 6 Conservation of Momentum

24 Lab 7 Newton’s Second Law

34 Lab 10 The Force Vector

(The small stands, extra rods, and clamps are nec-

36 Lab 11 The Momentum Vector

Each of these forces also produces a torque.

FM ,x = (0.1 kg)(9.8 m/s2 )

FH,x = (1 kg)(9.8 m/s2 )(cos 80 ◦ )?

40 Lab 13 The Moment of Inertia

42 Lab 13 The Moment of Inertia

44 Lab 14 Torque in Three Dimensions

46 Lab Appendix 1: Format of Lab Writeups

height of drop = 200 ± 4 cubits

Justification and Reasoning

100 cubits × tan 63 ◦ = 200 cubits.

act. Another important reason for stating results with er-

48 Lab Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis

50 Lab Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis

52 Lab Appendix 2: Basic Error Analysis

54 Lab Appendix 3: Propagation of Errors

To get a sharper statistical test, we can calculate the

which is 5.1. Since the operation is simply the subtrac-

Adjust the scales so the actual data on the plot

Fitting a Straight Line to a Graph

56 Lab Appendix 4: Graphing

Fitting a Straight Line to a Graph

Power laws Log-log plots

58 Lab Appendix 5: Finding Power Laws from Data

Using the software

Using the software in different modes

Mode for measuring how long the photogate

If there is no button for collecting data, it’s because

60 Lab Appendix 6: Using the Photogate

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