how you would perform an experiment to determine the acceleration due to gravity.

College Physics
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ISBN:9781305952300
Author:Raymond A. Serway, Chris Vuille
Publisher:Raymond A. Serway, Chris Vuille
Chapter1: Units, Trigonometry. And Vectors
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You are on the planet Neptune and want to determine the acceleration due to gravity, g. You have a stopwatch and a toy gun that can launch a ping pong ball vertically upwards with an initial velocity of 7.5 m/s. Describe, in words, how you would perform an experiment to determine the acceleration due to gravity. Be sure to describe the variables you would measure, the equations you would use and the assumptions you would make.

Make sure to include a diagram of the physical situation, label the unknown and known quantities with units, coordinate system in your answer.

Expert Solution
Step 1

I will launch the ping pong ball vertically upward and start the Stop watch.The ball will go in upward direction with decreasing speed due downward gravitational force and eventually it will come back (after reaching some hight h) to the surface after some time. When the ball reaches the surface I will stop the stopwatch and mesure the required time.

The time taken by the ball to come back to me after releasing is time of flight (T) .

I will measure the  time of flight with the stopwatch.

 

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