Simple Harmonic Motion
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Simple Harmonic Motion
Introduction
Simple harmonic motion can be defined as any periodic motion (one that repeats itself in successive equal intervals of time) that experiences a restoring force that depends linearly on the displacement from equilibrium, and once known that the acceleration of a particle varies with time, we can easily use Newton's second law in order to find the magnitude of this force that gives a particle that acceleration. Therefore, combining Newton's second law with , we obtain which is equal to Hooke's law, for a spring. In this experiment, we were able to apply this principle in order to find the spring constant of a given spring.
Before beginning the experiment we took some time to follow a few crucial steps such as taking turns reading the measurements, setting the balance to zero, and watching to keep the pointer on the weigh hanger from touching the ruler on the stand as it moved up and down since not following these crucial steps would probably cause errors in measurements. The following formulas were used in order to calculate the spring constant and acceleration due to gravity.
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By comparing the calculated value of acceleration due to gravity with the theoretical value, we figured that our experiment was inaccurate.
Material and apparatus
The materials used in this experiment include a stopwatch, base, support rod with ruler (1.0mm), adjustable spring holder, balance (0.01g), spiral spring, weight hanger with pointer and a set of masses.
Procedure
In the first part of the experiment we first adjusted the ruler on the stand as well as the pointer on the weight hanger so that the pointer could freely move up and down along the ruler without touching it...