It is the last day of winter break. But for Yufan, it was not a break at all. After approximately 20 college essays and a self-portrait later, Yufan is now confronted by his greatest fear-- Physics blog. So he walks out of his house with a tennis ball, a meter long ruler, a phone, and his friend Jimmy. He decides to do a mini lab right in front of his apartment. Why so close to his apartment you ask? Because he is only wearing pajama pants and it is really cold outside. He puts on his Christmas hat and pretends that he had a good Christmas when in fact his family does not celebrate such holiday and the only gift he received is a portrait that he drew for himself. That portrait is, in fact, an art homework so he was technology forced to do so and can't even keep it. Anyway, the lab is rather simple. The first step is to measure a meter long distance on the ground from the wall. Then, roll the tennis ball so it hits the wall and bounces back. While doing so, measure the time for the ball to hit the wall, and the time for it to travel back to its initial position. Afterward, calculate the speed of the tennis ball before and after hitting the wall. Last but not the least use the function 1/2mv^2 to calculate the ball's kinematic energy before and after.
What Yufan looks like on the outside
How Yufan feels inside
The lab in process
Anyway here is the data
Time spent to travel 1 meter before hitting the wall: 2.15s.
Time spent to travel 1 meter after hitting the wall: 4.3s.
Speed of traveling 1 meter before hitting the wall:0.465m/s
Speed of traveling 1 meter after hitting the wall: 0.243m/s
Result:
About 0.00457 joules of energy is lost in the ball.
No comments:
Post a Comment