The Simple Pendulum - Essay Example

The oscillations were repeated nine times using the same thread, same ball, while varying the length of the thread. The data was collected and analyzed using a graph. The results showed that as the length of the thread was reduced so was the time taken for a complete oscillation. It is widely known that the acceleration gravity g = 9.8 m/s2. (PHY 123 Lab 1 - Error and Uncertainty and the Simple Pendulum, 2010). However, the acceleration gravity may vary and as such the experiment of a simple pendulum can be used to determine the acceleration gravity (L09.

Measuring the Acceleration Due to Gravity with a Simple Pendulum). The movement of a fixed object from one point to the opposite side and back to the original point is called an oscillation (Gray, Costanzo, Conaway, Watterson, & Riley, 2005). The period of the oscillation is dependent on the length of the pendulum, the amplitude of the swing and the acceleration due to gravity (PHY 123 Lab 1 - Error and Uncertainty and the Simple Pendulum, 2010). There are a number of factors always ignored that could affect the period of the pendulum-the experimental errors (L09.

Measuring the Acceleration Due to Gravity with a Simple Pendulum). The objective of this experiment was to estimate the value of gravitational force (g), based on measurements obtained from a simple pendulum and comparing it to the value of widely accepted value of 9.81ms-2. Moreover, the project aimed at understanding the relationship between different parameters in an oscillating system. The relationship employed in this experiment was: The sphere (golf ball) was connected to a thread to create a pendulum.

The length of the thread used for this experiment was 0.79m determined by the measurement tool. A stopwatch was used to set and record the time taken for the oscillations. The pendulum was fixed to a table in order to limit errors and to make the oscillations near perfect. The time was set before the oscillations then measured and recorded