Mikephysics Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 Breaking News This just in from Irondequoit High school, we have found the acceleration due to gravity. Physicists Peter Martin and Mike Vrooman discovered this finding with a state-of-the-art lab. Materials consisted of a gator skin ball, a stopwatch, and a meter stick. They conducted the experiment first by measuring a set distance to drop the ball from. Then one of the physicists would drop the ball from that set height and start the stopwatch at the same time. They would stop the stopwatch when the ball hit the ground. They replicated the test several times to filter out the error. Then using the kinematic equation of d=vit + 1/2at^2 and their knowledge of the time it took for the ball to drop, the distance the ball fell and the initial velocity of zero, they discovered that the acceleration due to gravity is a force of 12.6 m/s^2. However fellow physicists informed them that the accepted value was 9.81 m/s^2. They found that their percentage error was 28% and they attributed it to a lapse between the stopwatch and after the ball hit the ground or starting too early. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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