Good morning NTSC'ers
I hope everyone is well!
I would wager that the success of yesterday's class was bimodal: those who did the experiment with the golf balls and got excellent results probably felt like Isaac Newton! The tennis ball group, where the results were not quite as good, probably did not feel the same synergy. What this really illustrates is that measurement for objects in freefall is VERY difficult, especially with hand held stopwatches. For example, the difference between 1.3 seconds and 1.5 seconds is 15%, and that is about the difference between success (a ~ 10 m/s2) and being not so successful. This is why Galileo and other physicists used ramps; measurement was much easier. We could probably use some better technology to run this experiment as well - something like light gates that automatically stop when passed. What we REALLY should be doing is going back out and re-running the experiment to get better values or at least check our results. Perhaps that vortex does exist! But we should move no. THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of this exercise is using the equations:
a = 1/2at(squared)
average v = d/t
instantaneous v = 2 x average velocity
and interpreting the graphs. From these graphs you should be able to develop a motion and vector map! Can you do this.
Tomorrow we will watch another cool TED video about education and then do some small group investigation and documentation of Newton's Laws of Motion. It will be fun.
See you then.
Be well
Matt
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