pearl pendulum_data

Your general comment, if any:

Your description of the rhythm of the pendulum when tilted 'back'

The sounds gets further apart until they stop. The pings of teh pearl against the metal bracket became further apart.

Your description of the rhythm of the pendulum when tilted 'forward'

The sounds (dings) of the pearl hitting the metal bracket get closer and closer together until they stop.

Your description of the process used to keep the rhythm steady and the results you observed:

I did the process about eight times before I could get a steady rhythm between each hitting of the pearl against the bracket. On average, the perl struck the bracket about 16 times on a five trial basis. I had to put an envelope under the bracket to steady it and make it level.

Your description of what happened on the tilted surface, rotating the system 45 degrees at a time:

With the bracket parallel to one of the sides of the book, the pendulum sounds became closer together.

With the base on the bracket 45 degrees counterclockwise, the sounds of the pearl hitting the bracket become faster while getting closer together; however, the sounds are not as fast as the bracket parallel ot one side of the book.

When rotated 90 degrees, the sounds remain constant as when rotated to 45 degrees.

When the bracket is rotated to a 135 degree angle, the sounds of the pearl hitting the bracket get considerably slower.

With the bracket rotated 180 degrees, the the sounds get even slower, the slowest yet.

When rotated to 225 degrees, the sound of the pendulum hitting the bracket speeds back up, but slows way down at the end before stoping.

When the bracket is rotated to 270 degrees, the sound of the pendulum hitting the bracket speeds up to a constant speed before stoping.

With the bracket rotated to 315 degree angle, the sounds of the pearl itting the bracket speeds up really fast, and the sound gets closer together again.

Back at the original position, I did not swing the pendulum again.

Your description of how you oriented the bracket on the tilted surface to obtain a steady rhythm:

I would orient the bracket to a 90 degree angle from its original position to ontain a regular beat of the pendulum.

Your report of 8 time intervals between release and the second 'hit':

Trial 1: .313, .297, .281, .297, .297, .281, .328, .318

Trial 2: .203, .234, .266, .25, .359, .234, .266, .275

Trial 3: .203, .234, .300, .300, .300, .313, .25, .25

Trial 4: .25, .375, .266, .344, .344, .300, .344, .375

Trial 5: .313, .266, .344, .281, .300, .300, .266, .328

Trial 6: .312, .281, .300, .234, .313, .313, .25, .288

Trial 7: .281, .313, .375, .300, .313, .300, .344, .360

Trial 8: .281, .281, .300, .390, .156, .25, .300, .266

Your report of 4 trials timing alternate hits starting with the second 'hit':

Trial 1: .634, .659, .828, .875

Trial 2: .659, .659, .822, .838

Trial 3: .625, .859, .688

Trial 4: .703, .810, .703, .800

The length of your pendulum in cm (you might have reported length in mm; the request in your instructions might have been ambiguous):

The length of the pendulum is 180 millimeters.

Your time intervals for alternate 'hits', starting from release until the pendulum stops swinging:

.09, .01, .05

Your description of the pendulum's motion from release to the 2d hit:

It was pulled taughntly at the farthest length back away from pendulum. It was released and bounced back.

Your description of the pendulum's motion from the 2d hit to 4th hit:

It did not bounce back as far.

Your description of the difference in the pendulum's motion from release to the 2d 'hit', compared to the motion from the 2d 'hit' to the 4th hit:

It did not bounce back as far again, because it coming closer to a stop.

Your description of the difference in the pendulum's motion from the 2d to the 4th 'hit' compared to the motion from the 4th to 6th hit:

This is the closest interval because the pearl is coming even closer to a stop. It does not bounce back as far.

Your conjecture as to why a clear difference occurs in some intervals vs. others:

It is moving quicker because is has more momentum at first.

What evidence is there that subsequent intervals increase, decrease or remain the same:

We would expect them to decrease because the pearl would be coming closer to a stop.

What evidence is there that the time between 'hits' is independent of the amplitude of the swing?

This experiment supports the evidence against the hypothesis that the length of a pendulum's swing depends only on its length, and is indepedent of how far it actually swings because it swings only as far as the string will allow, no matter how long or short the string is. We lengthed the string during this experiment and the two factors are in fact dependent of each other. 13:03:54 01-29-2006