lab1 the simple pendulum- universityof colorado boulder（lab1单摆,科罗拉多大学博尔德）.doc

Lab M1: The Simple Pendulum Introduction. The simple pendulum is a favorite introductory exercise because Galileos experiments on pendulums in the early 1600s are usually regarded as the beginning of experimental physics. Our experiment may be similar to one you have done in high school, however, the mathematical analysis will be more sophisticated. You will need to familiarize yourself (again) with radian measure and trigonometric functions, take derivatives of trigonometric functions in the prelab exercise, and apply the error analysis being presented in lecture. In part I you will find the acceleration of gravity and analyze the error in your measurement. In part II you will take data for your first plot using Mathcad, and in part III your data will illustrate why a small angle is used in part I. A simple pendulum consists of a mass m hanging at the end of a string of length L. The period of a pendulum or any oscillatory motion is the time required for one complete cycle, that is, the time to go back and forth once. If the amplitude of motion of the swinging pendulum is small, then the pendulum behaves approximately as a simple harmonic oscillator, and the period T of the pendulum is given approximately by ? (1)????????????? ?where g is the acceleration of gravity. This expression for T becomes exact in the limit of zero amplitude motion and is less and less accurate as the amplitude of the motion becomes larger. From this expression, we can use measurements of T and L to compute g. Let us review simple harmonic motion to see where eqn (1) comes from. Recall that simple harmonic motion occurs whenever there is a restoring force which is proportional the displacement from equilibrium. The simplest example of simple harmonic motion is that of a mass m on a spring which obeys Hookes Law, (2)????????????? ? where x is the displacement from equilibrium and k is a constant called the spring constant. From Newtons Second Law,?, we can write????,? or ?(3)??????