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Experimental General Physics

Laboratory Report PHYS 103 Fall 2021

Experiment Name: free fall

Experiment Date: 15/9/2021

Student Name: Maryam Salim Al-Rajahiya

Report Rubric
Elements Max Points
Abstract 5
Equations 3
Equipment 3
Implemented Procedure 4
Data 5
Graphs 20
Results 4
Analysis and units
Significant figures and
decimal places 15
Sample Calculations 20
Discussion and Conclusion 20
References 1
Total 100

Dr. Dorra Turki

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1 Aim of the experiment

 Measure in this experiment the free fall acceleration (g) due to the gravity of the earth.

1 Theory
The free-falling acceleration is an object that fall from rest to hit the ground because of gravity. Some
people do not know why this object is going downward, all of this is because the gravity of the earth.
Acceleration is a vector because it has magnitude and direction. If we are ignoring (air resistance) then
the acceleration of an object in free fall will always be 9.8m/s 2, then we use excel to make graph for the
results.

Galileo Galilei formulated the laws that describe the motion of falling objects, and he tried to prove that
earth's gravity exerts the same acceleration on all objects regardless of their masses. He did an
experiment: He drop a large and a small ball from the top a tower and observe that they reached ground at
the same time. According to his experiment All objects fall at the same rate if there is no air resistance.

All dropped objects falls to the Earth because of gravity. And How fast something falls with respect to
gravity is defined by a number known as the "acceleration of gravity" (9.8m/ s2), The acceleration symbol
is (g).

When the ball is dropped down and Since down considered as negative direction the acceleration of the
ball is: a = g = -9.8 m/ s2.

The free fall equation is identical to the 4 equations of motion with Constant acceleration:

v = v0 +at

x= x0 + V0 t+ ½ a t^2

{we replace the acceleration (a) with gravity (g), and we replace the variable x with y.}

v = v0 – g t

y= y0 + v0 t + ½ g t^2

Figure 1: v vs. t graph

2 Equipment
1- Holding Magnet.
2- Digital timer.
3- Metal ball.

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4- Contact Plate.
5- Ruler.

3 Procedure
1- Set the Y(cm) to 30cm between the ball and the contact plate, reset the timer.
2- Drop the ball, so it starts the free fall of the ball.
3- Record the time (t) in the table, Repeat the measurement 3 times.
4- Do step 2,3 with different distances by adding 10cm each time until achieving 60 which it
is the last Y(cm) that would be measured.
5- With the data entered, calculate the free-fall acceleration, and graph the data in Microsoft
Office Excel.

5. Results

(Put correct units in the tables and add columns to convert to SI units)

∆y ∆ y (m) δ (∆ y ¿ t1 t2 t3 tav
49. 2 0.492 0.001 0.327 0.26 5 0.283 0.291666
67
59. 3 0.593 0.001 0.307 0.31 3 0.2676 0.295866
67
70 0.7 0.001 0.319 0.31 5 0.407 0.347
81 0.81 0.001 0.346 0.33 4 0.34 0.34

∆ y SD tav δ SD tav δ V av = δ
v av =
t av ∆y
( )
t av
1.686857 0.031895 0.018414 0.184500
14 66 97 75
2.004281 0.024662 0.014239 0.167106
21 79 07 64
2.017291 0.052 0.030022 0.302316
07 21 72
2.382352 0.006 0.003464 0.042144
94 1 28

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5.1. Uncertainty of the timer.

0.00001(s)
5.2. The error of the mean of the time.
t 1+t 2+t 3 4.32614 .27814 .293
tav= = =0.29 s
n 3

( t 1−tav )2 + ( t 2−tav )2 + ( t 3−tav )2

√ 3−1
( 0.327−0.29 )2 + ( 0.265−0.29 )2 + ( 0.283−0.29 )2
=
√ 3−1
=0.03 s

SD 0.03
σ t́= = =0.02 s s
√3 √3

5.3. The error of the average velocity.

2 2
δ
∆y
( ) (
tav
=
√ 1
tav )(
∗σ ∆ y +
(−∆ y )
( tav )2
2
∗σt av
)
2
δ
∆y
(
tav
= ) √( 1
0.292
∗0.001) +
( (−0.492 )
( 0.292 ) )
∗0.0 3 =0 .2
2

5.4. Graph of the velocity over time vs. time.

Graph of Velocity over time

3
2.5
velocity (m/s)

2 f(x) = 6.78 x − 0.14

R² = 0.48
1.5
1
0.5
0
0.28 0.29 0.3 0.31 0.32 0.33 0.34 0.35 0.36
T avg (s)

∆ y (m)
Figure 2: Velocity vs. time (s) graph of the free-falling ball.
tav (s)

5.5. Slope and intercept of the graph and their errors.

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slope 6.7846 sec -0.1391 intercept

sec
error of slope 0.0701m/s 0.0074 sec error of intercept
R² 0.4758

5.6. Does your data represent the theory?

No, it is not representing the theory because R2 is not close to 1.

5.7. Value of the acceleration of gravityg.

6. g=2× slope=2× 6.78=13.6 m/ s2

6.1. The error of g.

error% = | g expg.−g theor .

theor . |× 100 %
%error = |9.8−13.6
9.8 |
× 100=38.8 %

6.2. Comparison with accepted value of g.

It is far from the accepted value of g, and the error percent is large (38.8 %)

6. Discussion.

The value of g from this experiment is not close to the expected value, which indicates high error and
by looking at R2 value of the straight line, the error could be happened by systematic errors due to
instrument and random errors caused by us during measurements.

Dr. Dorra Turki

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Dr. Dorra Turki