III.

ANALYSIS NEWTONS SECOND LAW OF MOTION Newtons second law of motion states that a net force is required to have acceleration. If a net force is applied on a body, the body will accelerate in the direction of the net force. The objective of this experiment is to verify direct proportionality of acceleration and net force if the mass of the body is constant. And also to verify the inverse proportionality of acceleration and mass if the net force is constant.

For this experiment, we used the following materials:

smart timer

dynamics cart dynamics track with pulley and string

set of weights

photogates

Part A. Constant Mass, Changing Net Force

For the first part of the experiment, we set the track on the edge of the table. We place the pulley on the end of track. One end of the string was tied on the dynamics cart and the other end, which passes on the pulley, was tied on the mass hanger. The set-up for the experiment was illustrated on Fig. 1. We will also use this set-up for the second and third part of the experiment. In this experiment, we put different mass on the mass hangers, while the mass of the dynamics cart remains constant. Every trial we increase the mass on the mass
Fig. 1

hangers to 20g. So we used 20g, 40g, 60g, 80g, and 100g, for the first up to the last trial respectively. From this data and calculated time from the smart timer, we can now solve for the net force and the acceleration. Althrough-out the experiment, we will be calculating for two accelerations; one is the accepted value and the other was the experimental value. The accepted value can be computed by the equation: ; where g is the gravitation near the earths surface which has the value of (9.8 m/s). The experimental value can be calculated by the formula After performing the procedures, we acquire the following datas: trial 1 2 3 4 5
Total hanging mass

time 1.6303 s 1.1688 s 0.9700 s 0.8658 s 0. 7825 s

Accepted value of a 0.3735 m/s 0.7179 m/s 1.0413 m/s 1.3409 m/s 1.6206 m/s

Exp. value of a 0.3762 m/s 0.7320 m/s 1.0628 m/s 1.3340 m/s 1. 6332 m/s

20 g 40 g 60 g 80 g 100 g

Plotting these datas on experimental acceleration versus the net force we have:

Acceleration versus Net force

1.8 1.6 ACCELERATION in (m/s) 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0.196 0.392 0.588 NET FORCE in (N) 0.784 0.98 accelerati

The graph of acceleration versus force shows us the direct relationship between the forces applied to an object and the amount of acceleration that the object experiences. When the force was doubled, the object will also accelerate twice as much. The object will accelerate on the direction of the force. In the experiment, the mass of the cart remains constant, what we are changing was the mass in the hangers, furthermore the force applied in the cart. So while we are increasing the mass on the hangers the cart accelerates faster. The slope of the line on the graph represents the mass of the object being accelerated. So from this experiment we can say that acceleration is directly proportional to the net force applied to the object.

Part B. Changing Mass, Constant Net force In the second experiment, we set the net force to constant while we are changing the mass of the dynamics cart. We will follow the same procedure as the

first part of the experiment. We make the mass on the hanger set to 100g. Meanwhile, we added 100g to the mass of the dynamics cart for every trial.

After performing the experiment we had the following information: Trial 1 2 3 4 5 total mass of cart .51924 kg .61924 kg .71924 kg .81924 kg .91924 kg Accepted value of a 1.6206 m/s 1.3907 m/s 1.2178 m/s 1.0832 m/s 0.9754 m/s Exp. value of a 1.6340 m/s 1.3799 m/s 1.1700 m/s 1.0921 m/s 1. 9976 m/s

Interpreting the results the above information we have the graph of acceleration versus the mass of the cart.

acceleration versus mass

1.8 ACCELERATION in (m/s) 1.6 1.4 1.2 1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0 0.51924 0.61924 0.71924 mass (kg) 0.81924 0.91924 acceleration

From the graph, we can say that acceleration is inversely proportional to the mass of the object. As we increase the mass of the cart, the slower it will accelerate. This is because when we put more weight on the cart, the more force is exerted on the trolley, and the force is greater than gravity so thats why it goes

slower than it would do if it had no weights on it. The weights may also cause to have more friction between the ramp and the wheels of the cart and so even moved slower when pulled.

Part C. Changing Mass, Changing Net force For this experiment, both the mass of the cart and the mass on the hangers were changing, furthermore, changing the mass and the net force. We will also follow the same procedure as we did in the previous part of the experiment. After performing the experiment, we got the following results: trial 1 2 3 4 5
total mass of cart

net force 0.196 N 0.392 N 0.588 N 0.784 N 0.980 N

Accepted value of a 0.3735 m/s 0.6080 m/s 0.7689 m/s 0.8862 m/s 0.9754 m/s

Exp. value of a 0.3758 m/s 0.6187 m/s 0.7676 m/s 0.8703 m/s 0.9697 m/s

.51924 kg .61924 kg .71924 kg .81924 kg .91924 kg

From the experiment, we can say that mass is directly proportional to net force acting on an object. This is true if the acceleration remains constant. So the greater the mass, the greater the force required to make that mass to move or to change speed or velocity. Its harder to push object when its heavier, thats why we need to exert much force or effort in order to push a heavier object.