General Physics I, Fall '10

Homework 1 -- due Friday Sept. 10 at 11:30 in class

1. How does the period of a pendulum depend on the mass of the bob? Support your answer with appropriate data.

2. How does the period of a pendulum depend on the amplitude of the swing? Do you have any actual evidence to support or refute Galileo's idea (see the "lab description" document if you don't recall this) that the slight increase in period for large amplitudes is an artefact of air resistance? If not, describe an experiment that would allow you to address this -- ideally one that could be performed in class on Friday with materials we actually have!

3. How does the period of a pendulum depend on its length? Show a graph of your data from class. (Putting Length along the vertical axis and Period along the horizontal axis is preferable here.) Go through the curve-fitting procedure we talked about in class in order to generate a reasonably simple mathematical formula that seems to adequately capture the trend in your data. See the lab description document for some hints. Please remember that the parameter "k" (from equation 1 from the lab description) will have some units, and the value you report for it should be a range, i.e., there should be an explicitly stated uncertainty.