introto物理实验室（ introto physics lab）.docVIP

PHY101 Physics Lab: Acceleration due to gravity Purpose To determine the value of the gravitational acceleration Theory When we use the word “acceleration” we mean the rate at which the velocity of a moving object changes with time. Acceleration is always caused by force – gravitational force as one of the fundamental forces of nature. This is the essence of Newton’s first law. In today’s lab we will measure the acceleration due to the gravitational force exerted by the earth on two different types of objects, a tennis ball, baseball and a ping-pong or golf ball. An object falling near the surface of the earth experiences constant gravitational acceleration. If we drop the object from the certain distance on a free fall, the distance traveled by an object in a free fall after “t” seconds is: (1) The velocity of an object in free fall after “t” seconds is: (2) Here, the parameters vo and g are, respectively, the initial velocity and the acceleration. Galileo first demonstrated this result when he dropped cannonballs of different masses (weights) from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to show that although they had different masses, when dropped together, they landed together. This happened in this manner because they both experienced the same acceleration. A similar experiment can be done by dropping a coin and a feather. When dropped in air, the coin always lands first, but when they are dropped in a vacuum, an environment where there is no air, they land together! In the coin and feather case, the different velocities are due to the presence of a force, the frictional force on the coin and the feather due to the presence of air. In this experiment, you will be dropping an object from rest, so that vo = 0. We will assume that the only acceleration present is due to the force of gravity. We then obtain the relation that describes the distance the object falls as a function of time . (3)