Was air resistance noticeable?
In this projectile experiment it can be seen that air resistance is very noticeable according to the observations made about the projectile flying through the air. As you can see in the x position graph the ball travels down due to my hand pulling the ball down as its getting ready to start the throw. Then at the 1.5 second mark you can see that the ball starts to leave my hand and gain altitude and with this air resistance starts to affect the ball. The air resistance pushes the ball in the opposite direction of the balls original direction causing the ball to lose velocity which can be seen in the decrease in velocity at the time 1.4 seconds- 2.0 seconds and then the ball reaches its high point. Then after the 2 second mark you can see on the x velocity graph that the velocity starts to increase again rapidly and that it is because the ball is leaving the high point is plummeting back down to the earth at 9.8 meters per second. The reasoning behind all of this is that the ball is pushing the air in front of it behind its self so that the ball can continue to move foreword and so then this push of air is called air resistance. The air resistance always pushes opposite of the balls direction of velocity because the air is like a barrier to the ball, that the ball tries to get through.
Was energy conserved?
In the projectile lab i believe that the energy was conserved. If you were to solve the kinetic and potential energy equations for a random time of the throw lets take the second second for example than you would see that they are exactly the same meaning and that no energy was lost. Also this makes sense due to the law of conservation of energy which says that energy can not be created or destroyed and so the energy must of been transformed from potential energy of the height that the ball had in my hand to kinetic energy when the ball was in motion. The reasoning behind all of this is that all objects have energy pact in there molecules at all times. When the ball was in my hand the balls molecules had potential energy or also known as stored energy and then it transformed into kinetic energy or the energy of movement when the ball started to increase its velocity. But energy doesn't just disappear, it transforms to other forms of energy and this is called the law of conservation of energy.
POTENTIAL ENERGY
PE=mgh PE= (1)(9.8)(0) PE= 0 J |
KINETIC ENERGY
KE= (1/2)mv^2 KE= (1/2)(1)(0)^2 KE= 0 J |
Was Momentum conserved?
In the projectiles motion the i think that the momentum was conserved. According to the momentum graphs, for the y scale momentum the graph started out with 0 kg/ms units of momentum and ended with about 0 kg/ms units of momentum. Similarly for the x scale momentum the momentum of the ball started out with with 0 kg/ms units of momentum and ended with about -0.1 kg/ms units of momentum which is very close to the beginning amount of momentum. Also the law of conservation of momentum states that if momentum is lost from one thing, then it must me transferred to another thing and not created or destroyed. So this means that the momentum in the ball was gained and lost but in the end was conserved. And finally if you were to solve the momentum equation for the beginning and end of the ball travels you would see that they are both 0 kg/ms meaning that the momentum was conserved. The reasoning behind all of this is that the momentum of an object is the how much mass affects the velocity of an object in motion and so if this is the case than the momentum must be changing during the balls travel because the velocity is always changing according to the time by velocity graph. So since the momentum is always changing then it seems like in the graph that momentum is being lost or gained but that is not true. It is being transferred and also conserved and you can see this conserving through looking at the beginning and end of the momentum graphs and seeing that they are the same.