Name: Zach Christoff
Lab Partners: Alyssa Jordan and Jake Hoffner
Date: 1/21/16
Lab Partners: Alyssa Jordan and Jake Hoffner
Date: 1/21/16
Conservation of Momentum and Impulse
We investigated the conservation of momentum by calculating the change in momentum by using mass and change in velocity & impulse by using DataStudio to calculate "area under the curve. They were then compared to each other, and the law of conservation of momentum was proven when they were nearly equal to each other.
Setup/Execution
The cart, which had varying masses, was pushed at a velocity into a stopper, which varied, on the end of a force sensor. A motion sensor was placed at the opposite end of the track to determine the velocity. Two graphs were made (below), one of velocity and one of force, and from the graphs, impulse and change in momentum were able to be calculated. The velocity graph was used to determine velocities immediately before and after the collision, while the force graph was used to find impulse by calculating the are under the curve.
Data
Observations
The object that experienced the most percent difference, surprisingly, was the magnet. A possible reason for skewed data could be that the cart actually hit the force sensor instead of being stopped short by the magnet. The spring had the least percent difference by far, probably due to the fact that it "gave" the most compared to the other objects; the others stopped the cart more abruptly which might have caused the plane to move slightly. However, most of the percent differences are relatively small, hence proving the law of conservation of momentum holds for this experiment.