Lab homework

You will be submitting an informal lab report for your pendulum work - this will be submitted individually, 2 classes from now.

In it, you should have:

Graph of Time vs. Length, with a curve fit
Graph of Time vs. Square root of length, with a linear regression line (and slope)
Graph of Time vs. Angle (if you took that data)

On the second graph, the regression line equation IS the equation for your experiment.  Write down that equation and talk (in a conclusion) about how well it compares to the ACTUAL equation for the period/time of a pendulum:

Note that g is a local gravitation constant, equal to around 9.8 m/s/s (that's how quickly gravity makes object accelerate, in m/s per second).  If you work out the constants (2 pi divided by the square root of 9.8), you get a coefficient of around 2.0.  So a local version of the equation becomes:

T = 2 sqrt (L)

In your conclusion (which will be 2-3 paragraphs at minimum), discuss:

- the extent to which your equation resembles the one above
- sources of error in your experiment
- ways to improve your experiment
- anything else you wish to talk about

Finally, answer these 2 questions in your short report:

1.  Knowing the formula above, what is the period of a 3-m long pendulum?  Calculate this.
2.  (This requires some algebra.)  How long should a pendulum be for it to have a 1 second period?

Again, here's what is due in 2 classes:

Graphs
Conclusion
Question to answer

And it should be neat - typed is nice, but handwritten is ok, too.