- #1
Persimmon
- 22
- 0
Homework Statement
An experiment was done to test the validity of the equation a = 2/3 g sin∅ for a rolling cylinder. A hockey puck was rolled down a wooden ramp at 5 different inclination angles, and the time it took to roll down the length of the board was recorded. ∅ was found using trigonometry, acceleration via L= 1/2 at^2, with L the length of the board. The five points were plotted and linear best fit line was drawn.
Homework Equations
Expected result:
a = 2/3 g sin∅
Experimental results:
a = 0.92 gsin ∅ -0.05
The Attempt at a Solution
I can't quite figure out why such a large difference arose. The value for slope should be closer to 0.67, but it's actually much larger. If anything, I would have thought it would be smaller due to friction acting on the puck, but the puck actually accelerates faster than it should. Granted, the measured times were very small, the largest less than 1.5 seconds, so I suppose it could be that all of the times were a bit short but this still seems like a rather large discrepancy. I've already done the experiment twice and I keep getting similar results.