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PHYS 121 Lab 3 Conclusion

The experiment aimed to measure gravitational potential energy and spring energy changes, but the results showed discrepancies from theoretical expectations, with a gravitational energy change of 0.12542 J/m compared to the expected 0.0229 J/m. Systematic errors, such as data collection methods and friction, were identified as potential causes for these differences. Future improvements include refining measurement techniques and focusing on data during constant velocity to enhance accuracy.

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Calvin Lu
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7 views1 page

PHYS 121 Lab 3 Conclusion

The experiment aimed to measure gravitational potential energy and spring energy changes, but the results showed discrepancies from theoretical expectations, with a gravitational energy change of 0.12542 J/m compared to the expected 0.0229 J/m. Systematic errors, such as data collection methods and friction, were identified as potential causes for these differences. Future improvements include refining measurement techniques and focusing on data during constant velocity to enhance accuracy.

Uploaded by

Calvin Lu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Conclusion:

​ According to theory, by using the equation for gravitational potential energy and solving
for energy over displacement, we should have obtained a value of around 0.0229 J/m for our
change in energy over displacement value. It is also important to note that this is quite close to 0,
taking into account the fact that the cart was experiencing zero acceleration, and thus very little
to no energy should have been lost. However, we received a value of 0.12542 J/m ± 0.0065 J/m,
which is significantly larger than what we expected to get according to theory. These values do
not agree with each other very well, and one possible source of systematic error could be that we
didn’t exclude the data from when we released the cart and when we stopped it with our hands.
These events would result in bigger changes in energy. These endpoints could have affected our
data and thus result in a higher energy change being calculated than normal. Another obvious
source of this discrepancy would be friction, as the friction in this lab was not completely
negligible, but this is something we have no control over. In the future, we will try to be more
precise with our timing and record only the time when the cart has constant velocity and try to
cut out the part where we start and stop the cart.
​ In theory, for the spring component of our lab, we should have observed zero relative
energy change due to the laws of conservation of mechanical energy. Our data and calculations
yielded a value of -0.96 J ± 0.000831 J for the relative energy change, which, although small, is
still not quite zero. Although these values somewhat agree, one source of systematic error that
could have prevented our epsilon value from being closer to zero is possibly because we were
using our phone camera to record the maximum and final positions of the spring, and due to the
parallax between the lens of the phone and actual position of the spring, our measurements for
the position may have been inaccurate by a few centimeters. This would have affected our value
for spring potential energy and thus our value for epsilon. This could also be due to a small
amount of air resistance, which we have no control over. In the future, one way to resolve this is
to use a more accurate system of measurement nearer to the spring such as a ruler or sensor. In
this scenario, mechanical energy was not conserved because the total energy, or the sum between
the kinetic energy of the spring when it is moving and the initial spring potential energy, changed
for each oscillation.

Acknowledgements:

John Kushan for giving us assistance in calculations during lab time


Daniel Lim, my lab partner, for helping me with data collection
CME Lab Manual for providing the guidelines and framework for the lab report

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