LAB:

Pendulum

Felix Hovine

Introduction
The time period of a pendulum is related to its length, the longer the pendulum the
longer is the time period, however you might not know that the period is also related to
the gravity. If you took a pendulum to the moon, it would swing more slowly so have a
longer time period. In this experiment I will measure the acceleration due to gravity on
earth by measuring the time period of a pendulum

Research question:
What is the relationship between the time period and the length of a pendulum (l)?

Dependent variable: time period (s)
Independent variable: length (m)
Controlled variable:
The mass
The type of string
Atmospheric condition
Amplitude

Hypothesis:
Applying the simple harmonic motion pendulum equation ( = 2

!
!

), I expect an

increase of the time period if there is an increase in the length. Since 2 and g are
constant I expect that T will be proportional to or that T2 will be proportional to l.

LAB: Pendulum

Felix Hovine

Method:

Apparatus List:
Mass
String
Tape
Marker
Clamp stand
Timer

Clamp stand

String

Mass
Marker

Measuring the variable

To measure the length between the mass and the clamp stand, we measured between
the centre of the mass to the end of the string.
To have more accuracy to record the time, we decided to record the period for 10
oscillations instead of one.

Controlling Variable

To be sure that the mass lined up with the marker, I positioned my head in line with the
marker. Like this the amplitude will be the same for every trials. The same mass and the
same type of string was used throughout the experiment. Moreover, we did the
experiment in the same laboratory and in less than 2 hours, to be sure that the
atmospheric conditions were the same.

LAB: Pendulum

Felix Hovine

Design
1. Place the mass at the marker position
2. Release the mass and start the timer
3. As soon as the mass reaches the marker count 1 oscillation
4. Allow the pendulum to complete 10 oscillations
5. When the mass reaches the marker for the 10th time, stop the timer
6. Repeat the 5 steps above 5 times
7. Change the length of the string 5 times and repeat steps 1 to 6 for each change of
length




Results:

Raw data table

Below is a table of the data from the 5 trials for each of the 5 different length. The
uncertainty in length is estimated to be of the smallest division of the ruler(1mm)
The uncertainty in time is calculated from the (Max time-Min time)/2
For the average for the time of the 10 periods, we added all the trials for one value of the
length and we divided it by 5(#1+#2+#3+#4+#5)/5.



Length( m)

10T (s)*

Av 10 T (s)

Time for 10 periods (s) 0.2s

7.66

0.20*

10.08

10.25

8.59

0.20*

11.8

11.13

11.6

9.52

0.20*

12.41

12.88

12.95

10.62

0.20*

0.35
13.96
13.18
13.82
13.91
13.01
11.37



*For the uncertainty for the time of the 10 periods we rounded up the uncertainty to
0.20 seconds because we decided that our experiment was not accurate enough to have
an uncertainty lower than 0.2s. So every uncertainty that was lower than 0.2s was
rounded up to 0.2s

0.20*

0.0005m

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

0.15

9.72

8.65

9.21

9.22

0.20

10.2

10.4

10.42

0.25

11.21

11.11

0.30

12.81

12.34

LAB: Pendulum

Felix Hovine

Processed Data

length (m) Av 10 T (s) 10T (s)* T (s)
T (s)
T2 (s2)
T2 (s2)
0.0001m





0.15
7.66
0.20*
0.77
0.02
0.59
0.04
0.20
8.59
0.20*
0.86
0.02
0.74
0.04
0.25
9.52
0.20*
0.95
0.02
0.91
0.04
0.30
10.62
0.20*
1.06
0.02
1.13
0.04
0.35
11.37
0.20*
1.14
0.02
1.29
0.04

For the average for the time for the 10 periods and its uncertainty, we took them from
the raw data table.

T represents the time for 1 period, to calculate it we divided the average for 10 periods
by 10. For the uncertainty of 1 period, we used the same method, we divided the
uncertainty for 10 periods by 10.
To see the relationship with the length, we had to square the period (T2). For its
uncertainty, we time by 2 the uncertainty for 1 period.