Question

1. (5 pts.) Compare the momentum of the system before impact with the momentum of the system after impact. Do they agree within the limits of experimental uncertainty?

2. (5 pts.) Compare the kinetic energy of the system before impact with the kinetic energy of the system after impact. How much energy was lost? What happened to it? How well does the experimental ratio agree with the theoretical ratio of the kinetic energy before impact to the kinetic energy after impact?

3. (5 pts.) Which measured quantity contributed most to the uncertainty in this experiment?

4. (5 pts.) If we increase the mass of the ball by a small amount what effect would this have on the height to which the pendulum rises before coming to rest? The spring force applied by the spring gun does not change, however.

DATA:

AVG mass of ball: 69.72

AVG Range: 265

AVGHeight above table: 89.8

AVG height of rise: 7.4

Mass of pendulum: 275.11

Answer 1

Problem -1

Theory:-

The Law of Conservation of Momentum states that in a closed system, the total momentum of masses before and after their collision is constant-momentum, which is conserved. This states that when two things collide the sum of the momentum will be the same before the collision as after. This law also states that the magnitude of two colliding objects’ momenta must be equal in order for the vector sum of the opposing momenta to equal zero.

The equation can be seen as

Conclusion:-

The Law of Conservation of Momentum states that the magnitude of the the colliding objects should allow for the opposing momenta to equal zero. In the case of this experiment the percentage difference of the trials for the most part remained under 10%. This number taken into account with different sources of human error allows for the experiment to be verified.

Therefore they agree within the limits of experimental uncertainity.