045 Kinetics
The kinetics demonstration attempts to tie together the concepts of the past two weeks in physical science by putting six dynamics equations on the board. a = constant, d=½at², v=at, p=mv, KE=½mv², GPE=mgh Although the original idea was that the velocity at the bottom of the slope can be predicted from the energy equations and then a measured slope can be obtained in a method similar to the banana leaf marble ramp laboratory, the following spring I became intrigued by the ability to obtain a predicted height from actual measurements of the height. This was in part because the height was considered to be one of the larger sources of uncertainty in the calculations. The spreadsheet in spring 2024 set the gravitational potential energy to be equal to the kinetic energy by definition. But given the conservation of energy laboratory just done the day before, rather than use the data to find a predicted height, the more appropriate goal is to see if the kinetic energy at the slope bot