Lab Energy of the Tossed Ball
Inspect your gravitational potential energy vs. time graph for the free-fall flight of the ball. Explain its shape.
Inspect your Total energy vs. time graph for the free-fall flight of the ball. Explain its shape.
What is the physical meaning of the slope of the total energy vs. time, or of the tangent lines to the curves in the Kinetic and Potential energies vs. time?
What do you conclude from this graph about the total energy of the ball as it moved up and down in free fall? Does the total energy remain constant? Should the total energy remain constant? Why? If it does not, what sources of extra energy are there or where could the missing energy have gone?
For the time that the ball is in the air, what is the sign of the work done by gravity on the way up and on the way down? What happens to the Kinetic and Potential Energies on the way up and down? Associate the changes in Kinetic and Gravitational Potential energies on the way up and down to the work done by gravity and write a statement about it, .
What is a conservative force? Examples
What is a non-conservative force? Examples?
What would change in this experiment if you used a very light ball, like a beach ball?
What would happen to your experimental results if you entered the wrong mass for the ball in this experiment?