Force, Mass, and Acceleration Lab

Apoorva Shah

1 Introduction
The three variables examined in this lab were force, mass, and acceleration. Our aims were to find a
generalized relationship between them by using the data from frictionless carts. In order to do this, we had
to first decide how our experiments would be conducted. The main problem posed was that there were
three variables. However an experiment can only have two variables(one is independent while the other one
is dependent). Therefore, it was only natural perform two experiments. Each experiment would give us a
relationship between two of the three variables. This could then be combined to give a general relationship
between all three variables.
In each experiment, one variable will be our controlled variable, one will be the dependant variable and one
variable will remain constant. So now the question is; Which two experiments will be convenient to test?

Here is a chart of the six different possibilities:

Possible Experiments
number Change Constant Measure
1 Force Mass Acceleration
2 Force Acceleration Mass
3 Acceleration Force Mass
4 Acceleration Mass Force
5 Mass Force Acceleration
6 Mass Acceleration Force

The key here is to examine acceleration. We know that it will be hard to control/change acceleration and it
will be hard to force acceleration to be constant. This automatically rules out numbers 2,3,4 and 6 leaving
us with the following two experiments:
Two Experiments
Change Constant Measure
Force Mass Acceleration
Mass Force Acceleration

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2 The First Experiment
In our first experiment, we changed the mass of the system, kept the force constant and measured acceleration.
The setup was fairly simple; there was a zero friction car on the table attached to a ticker tape timer. The
other end of the car was connected to a string hanging off a pulley. There were weights at the end of the
string. These would represent the force. Since we were changing system mass while keeping force constant,
we would have to add on weights to the car,not on the hanging string. First we started with no added weight
to the car. Then, after each successive trial, we added one 0.5 kg block. This would change the system mass
but keep the force constant. After each trial was complete, we took the ticker tape and recorded the total
distance traveled at time intervals of 0.1 seconds.

Our data table for this looked like:

Displacement of the Car for Changing System Mass (M)
System Mass .0 sec .1 sec .2 sec .3 sec .4 sec .5 sec .6 sec
0.545kg 0.0 0.012 0.0357 0.0875 0.143 0.2275 0.334
1.045kg 0.0 0.0059 0.0235 0.0528 0.0925 0.1431 0.208
1.545kg 0.0 0.01 0.025 0.05 0.082 0.121
2.045kg 0.0 0.011 0.026 0.046 0.071 0.102
2.545kg 0.0 0.0089 0.0215 0.0391 0.0612 0.088
3.045kg 0.0 0.005 0.015 0.027 0.042 0.062
The graph is on the next page.

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We see that the graph of displacement vs. time looks parabolic. This suggests that the graph of instantaneous
velocity will look linear. So, the only way we can verify this is to graph the velocity vs. time. Since finding
instantaneous velocity will be difficult, we approximated it by technically finding the average velocity at
intervals of 0.1.
The data table for instantaneous velocity looked like this:
Velocity of the Car for Changing System Mass (M)
System Mass .0 sec .1 sec .2 sec .3 sec .4 sec .5 sec .6 sec
0.545kg 0.0 0.012 0.0255 0.05 0.0555 0.0845 0.1065
1.045kg 0.0 0.0059 0.0176 0.0293 0.0397 0.0506 0.0649
1.545kg 0.0 0.01 0.015 0.025 0.032 0.039
2.045kg 0.0 0.011 0.015 0.02 0.025 0.031
2.545kg 0.0 0.0089 0.0126 0.0176 0.0221 0.0268
3.045kg 0.0 0.005 0.01 0.012 0.015 0.02

The graph is on the next page.

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The velocity graphs seem to be linear. Therefore we can find the acceleration of the cars at different system
masses by simply taking the slope of each line. This is because
∆v
slope = ∆t =a

Once we have the acceleration for each system mass, we can make another data table. This time, it will be
for system mass and acceleration because the ultimate goal of this experiment was to relate system mass to
acceleration.
The following is the mentioned data table.
System Mass vs. acceleration
.545kg 1.045kg 1.545kg 2.045kg 2.545kg 3.045kg
Acceleration(m/s2 ) 1.78 1.1 0.76 0.57 0.5 0.38

see graph

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After graphing the data for this, we get what looks like the function
1
f (x) = x

so, we will transform the graph by graphing f (1/x)

see graph

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This graph is linear. Therefore, m1sys ∝ a

3 The Second Experiment

Recall that for this experiment, we kept system mass constant but changed the force. Again, we used a
similar setup for our frctionless cars and tickertape timer. However, the main difference was that system
mass had to be kept constant. So, what we did was we started with 0.550kg of mass hanging on the string
and after each trial, we transferred 0.1kg to the car. This would keep system mass constant while changing
the force. Then, we recorded the displacement of the cars using the ticker tapes. The results are as follows;
Displacement of the Car for Changing Force (M)
System Mass .0 sec .1 sec .2 sec .3 sec .4 sec .5 sec .6 sec
0.050kg 0.0 0.0091 0.0225 0.039 0.0588 0.0827
0.150kg 0.0 0.0135 0.0395 0.0775 0.1265 0.189 0.2665
0.250kg 0.0 0.0132 0.0473 0.1048 0.1821 0.2801
0.350kg 0.0 0.024 0.0795 0.164 0.279 0.4282
0.450kg 0.0 0.019 0.0786 0.1771 0.3237 0.4892
0.550kg 0.0 0.023 0.0815 0.171 0.312 0.5005
T
he graph is on the next page.

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After examining this graph, we realized that it seems parabolic. Therefore, we try graphing the velocity
using the same method for the first experiment.
The graph of the velocity then looks like this:
Displacement of the Car for Changing Force (M)
System Mass .0 sec .1 sec .2 sec .3 sec .4 sec .5 sec .6 sec
0.050kg 0.0 0.0091 0.0134 0.0165 0.0198 0.0239
0.150kg 0.0 0.0135 0.026 0.038 0.049 0.0625 0.0775
0.250kg 0.0 0.0132 0.0341 0.0575 0.0773 0.098
0.350kg 0.0 0.024 0.0555 0.0845 0.115 0.1492
0.450kg 0.0 0.019 0.0596 0.0985 0.1466 0.1655
0.550kg 0.0 0.023 0.0585 0.0895 0.141 0.1885
See graph next page.

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The graphs for the instantaneous velocities are linear. So, we know that we can find the accelerations for
each different force applied. This gives us:
System Mass vs. acceleration
.050kg 0.150kg 0.250kg 0.350kg 0.450kg 0.550kg
Acceleration(m/s2 ) 0.4 1.44 2.19 3 3.75 4.2

See graph

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This graph is linear so we know that the mass of the hanging blocks(mp ) is proportional to the acceleration(a)

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4 Data Analysis
From the two experiments, we have determined two important pieces of information;
1
a∝ masssys

a ∝ mp

Therefore
B
a= masssys

a = A ∗ mp (this is simply the definition of proportionality for some constants A and B)

m p
Also, because these are direct proportions, we know that a ∝ msys . Again, using the definition of propor-
mp
tionality gives us a = C ∗ msys for some constant C.
From here, we can write a ∗ msys = C ∗ mp = B Ah Ha!
Solving for C is now a very simple matter because B is the slope of our transformed changing system mass
graph and mp is a constant in that experiment.

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