Newton’s Second Law Experiment AN Objective In this experiment you will investigate New- ton’s second law of motion and study the de- pendence of an object’s acceleration on its mass and on the net force. Introduction Understanding how forces produce motion in an object took centuries. The aristotelian view that a force is required to keep a body mov- ing was the commonly held view until the sev- enteenth century. ‘This incorrect view, based on everyday experience, can be attributed to a misunderstanding of the nature of friction. Not until the careful experimental work of Galileo, leading up to Newton's three law's of motion, was it understood that a net force (including any frictional forces) implies an ac- celeration and that a zero net force implies motion at constant velocity. Newton also elucidated the role of the ob- ject’s mass on its acceleration. His second law states that the acceleration a of an object is proportional to the net force F acting on it and inversely proportional to the object’s mass m. This vector relation is traditionally expressed wo Foma ‘The apparatus shown in Fig. 1 will be used to explore Newton’s second law. The cart ac- celeration is determined from data collected as the picket fence mounted to it passes through the photogate. ‘The net force on the cart will be varied by increasing or decreasing the weight hanging on the string and the cart mass is varied by adding steel bars on top of it. Theory ‘The motion of the eart and hanging mass will be analyzed by applying F = ma separately to each of the two masses: the cart of mass m and the hanging mass M. However, because both masses move along straight lines — horizontal for the cart, vertical for the hanging mass — a limensional version of Eq. 1 can be used (2) in which F and a are signed quantities. To use Eq. 2, the positive direetion (for force, po- sition, velocity, and acceleration) must first be chosen. We will choose the positive dircetions as downward for the hanging mass and toward the pulley for the cart. With this convention, and because the string remains taut and its length is constant throughout the motion, the magnitudes and signs of the velocity v and ac- celeration a must be the same for both masses, Consider first the hanging mass M. The string exerts an upward (negative) force equal to the string tension T and the earth exerts a downward (positive) force Mg which together produce a net signed fore Mg—T' on the hang- ing mass M. Applying Eq. 2 then gives Mg-T=Ma Foma (3) ANIAN 2 Introductory Physics Laboratory Vigure 1: ‘he experimental apparatus. ‘he hanging weight supplies the force to accelerate the cart along a level track. The photogate and mini picket fence are used to determine the acceleration. where a is the signed acceleration of the mass M. ‘This ean be solved for the tension giving @) For small accelerations, @ << g, the tension T is very nearly equal to Mg, the weight of the hanging mass. However, even for the rel- atively small accelerations — less than 1.00 m/s? — which occur in this experiment the dependence of T' on a should be taken into account for best results. On a level track, the carts weight mg is cancelled by the normal force exerted by the track and the only remaining forces are due to the string tension and the frictional force, both of which act parallel to the track. We consider initially a given hanging mass M and cart mass m for which the maynitude Fy of the frictional force is expected to be constant and independent of the direction of motion. Of course, because the frietional foree always opposes the motion, its direction or sign will depend on the direction of motion In this experiment, the eart will, im fact be set in motion both toward and away from the pulley, ie., in both the positive and neg- ative directions. Because the frietion changes T=M(g-«) sign while the tension remains positive for mo- tion in the two directions, the accelerations will differ for the two cases. Furthermore, be- cause the tension depends on the acceleration, it will also be (slightly) different in the two cases. For motion toward and away from the pulley we will use the subscripts + and —, re- spectively, on the resulting accelerations and tensions. Newton's second law gives for mation to- ward the pulley (in the positive direction) T, — Fy = may ©) and for motion away from the pulley ma T+ © where Fy is the magnitude of the frictional for Also, according to Eq. 4, we have for the two cases T, = M(g~a,) (7) T_=Mg~a) (8) Equations 5 and 6 demonstrate that for mo- tion in the positive direction (where the forces due to tension and friction are in opposite di- rections) the acceleration a, will be smallerNewton's Second Law than the acceleration a_ for motion in the neg- ative direction (where the forces due to tension and friction are in the same direction). ‘The analysis simplifies considerably if we define the average acceleration for the two ceases ata (9) dav and the average tension LAT. 2 With these definitions, we can then average Eqs. 7 and 8 (add them together and divide by two) giving Tae (20) Tay = M(g ~ as) (ay Furthermore, when Eqs. 5 and 6 are similarly averaged, the frictional force drops out leaving Tay = May (12) ‘This last equation is an effective Newton's second law for the cart. Tyy plays the role of the net forec, aay plays the role of the accel eration, and m is the cart mass. In the lab, you will measure accelerations for motion in both directions and determine ayy. Next, you will use Eq. 11 to determine the effective net force Tyy on the cart, Finally, you will ver- ify whether the acceleration is proportional to this net force and inversely proportional to the cart mass. ‘The Photogate Program ‘The data acquisition program designed for this experiment is very similar to the one you used previously for Experiment AP Accelera- tion due to Gravily which also used a picket fence to measure acceleration. In that experi ment a list of blockage times were measured as a large picket fence fell through a photogate AN You used this data with a spreadsheet, pro- gram to construct position vs. time graph, a velocity vs. time graph and, using a linear regression program, you determined the accel- eration and initial velocity of the picket fence. For this experiment, a small picket fence is attached to the eart. The data acquisition and analysis principles are the same. A computer clock is read each time the photogate becomes blocked by a black stripe on the picket fence. However, rather than simply providing the list of Gimes, Lhis program will display Ue posi- tion vs. time graph and perform the regression analysis, displaying the resulting acceleration and the initial velocity. You will measure and provide as input to the program the number of stripes and the spacing between the stripes on the picket fence. The position vs. time graphs will show both the data (dots) and the fit (smooth line). Unless these overlap nearly perfectly, the data and analysis should not be trusted and the run should be repeated. Program Signs The photogate program cannot tell the diree- tion of travel of the picket fence as it moves through the photogate. In determining the initial velocity and acceleration from the data, the computer treats motion in either direction as if that direction were the positive direc- (ion, Thus all initial velocities will be posi- tive. Furthermore, positive accelerations will always be indicated for motion which is speed- ing up (in either direction) and negative accel- erations will be indicated for motion which is slowing down (in either direction). Positive ecelerations for speeding up and negati celerations for slowing down may seem reason- able but may become a source of confusion. (See Prelab question.)