Pendulum Lab
Name: Kaili Smith Pendulum
1. Research to find equations that would help you find g using a pendulum. Design an experiment and test your design using Moon and Jupiter. Write your procedure in a paragraph that another student could use to verify your results. Show your data, graphs, and calculations that support your strategy.
The time it takes a pendulum to complete one back-and-forth swing, called the pendulum’s period, depends only on the pendulum’s length and the value of gravity. In an experiment, an experimenter can easily manipulate a pendulum’s length. The value of gravity cannot be manipulated.
The best way to find the gravity of a planet/moon using a pendulum would be to use the pendulum to find the time it takes to swing the length of a period. So we know two variables in the equation g=4π2L/(T2), where g is gravity, L is the length of the pendulum, and T is the period of the pendulum. Thus, we can easily find gravity. Do at least 10 trials with varying lengths, but always starting the pendulum at fifteen degrees. Record the Length (L) of the pendulum, the time to complete a period (T) in seconds, and T2 (just to make it easier to plug into the equation later) for each trial.
Either take the average of the gravities found after plugging in L and T2 or you can plot a line of best fit to determine the gravity of a planet/moon and get rid of any outliers.
Moon:
|Trial |Length of the Pendulum (L) |Time to complete period (T)|T2 |Gravity (g) |
|1 |2.00 m |6.91 s |47.7 |1.66 m/sec2 |
|2 |1.40 m |5.78 s |33.4 |1.65 m/sec2 |
|3 |1.25 m |5.46 s |29.8 |1.66 m/sec2 |
|4 |1.92 m |6.77 s
1. Research to find equations that would help you find g using a pendulum. Design an experiment and test your design using Moon and Jupiter. Write your procedure in a paragraph that another student could use to verify your results. Show your data, graphs, and calculations that support your strategy.
The time it takes a pendulum to complete one back-and-forth swing, called the pendulum’s period, depends only on the pendulum’s length and the value of gravity. In an experiment, an experimenter can easily manipulate a pendulum’s length. The value of gravity cannot be manipulated.
The best way to find the gravity of a planet/moon using a pendulum would be to use the pendulum to find the time it takes to swing the length of a period. So we know two variables in the equation g=4π2L/(T2), where g is gravity, L is the length of the pendulum, and T is the period of the pendulum. Thus, we can easily find gravity. Do at least 10 trials with varying lengths, but always starting the pendulum at fifteen degrees. Record the Length (L) of the pendulum, the time to complete a period (T) in seconds, and T2 (just to make it easier to plug into the equation later) for each trial.
Either take the average of the gravities found after plugging in L and T2 or you can plot a line of best fit to determine the gravity of a planet/moon and get rid of any outliers.
Moon:
|Trial |Length of the Pendulum (L) |Time to complete period (T)|T2 |Gravity (g) |
|1 |2.00 m |6.91 s |47.7 |1.66 m/sec2 |
|2 |1.40 m |5.78 s |33.4 |1.65 m/sec2 |
|3 |1.25 m |5.46 s |29.8 |1.66 m/sec2 |
|4 |1.92 m |6.77 s