Application of the equations of motion - Book Report/Review Example

During the flight of the body as well as in every other physical situation involving change of any kind, energy might be transformed within the system but the total energy of the system has to be necessarily conserved all the time. This is called the Principle of conservation of energy. If a body in motion not only has translational motion but also undergoes rotation about an axis, newton’s laws of motion are still valid however, mass is replaced by moment of inertia (I), force by torque (τ), acceleration (α) and velocity (ω) by angular acceleration and angular velocity respectively.

The corresponding Newton’s law for rotational motion states that: The arrangement of the experimental setup is as shown in the figure. Small steel balls are allowed to fall through a long metallic pipe which is itself kept at an elevation H from the ground. After leaving the tube, the ball undergoes projectile motion, finally touching the ground at the distance x, as shown in the figure. The tilt of the tube can be adjusted. Where W is the energy expended due to friction. However, the friction within the tube also causes the balls to undergo rotational motion.

The moment of inertia of a spherical ball being given by , the total kinetic energy of the ball is given by: We note that if we have the energy lost due to friction W, then the correct position of landing of the ball x can be determined accurately for any angle θ. All the other parameters can be determined experimentally. 4) The ground near the point of approach of the ball is lined with white paper on top of which carbon paper is laid. Distances x and L are measured from the spot made by the carbon paper to the base of the