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ROLLING BALLS DOWN PLANES

   If you have gone to the trouble to find this page, you deserve some help - but at the moment I am not quite sure what to tell you.  I could do with some useful Web page references that we could use for background information; if you find any, please let me know.

   The basic experiment is to investigate how the final speed v of the ball changes, as the vertical height h that it falls changes.  You might as well suppose, as a preliminary prediction, that v is proportional to h. The symbolic way of showing this is:  v  µ  h.  If two things are proportional, then doubling one, doubles the other, and so on.  A graph of one against the other will be a straight line through the origin.

   When you have got a preliminary set of data, plot v against h. Does it look as though v  µ  h ?

   Consider conservation of energy.  As the ball goes down the slope, it gains ½ m v2 of kinetic energy, and loses mgh of gravitational potential energy.  This implies that equal increases in height fallen should give equal increases in v2 gained.  Try a graph of v2 against h.

   Presumably the KE gained should equal the PE lost.  Try this on a table of results, or, better, plot a graph of ½ m v2 against mgh; if these are supposed theoretically to be equal, what should the slope of the graph be?

Have at look at this university-level work-sheet..  Or this one.  This animation may help you.

 Good luck.  Email me if you any urgent questions - and you can email draft work for me to comment on, if you wish.   (PHT)