In my physics lab had an experiment where we dropped a ping-pong from a certain

Question

In my physics lab had an experiment where we dropped a ping-pong from a certain distance and we would record the "bounce back".

There where three questions after the experiment.

1. Explain why energy was not perfectly conserved. Give examples of how energy can exit the system we performed.

2.What, if any, relationship exists between initial kinetic energy of our system and initial height of the ball?

3.What relationship exists between kinetic energy and velocity right before the ball hits the ground?Given our collected data, calculate the percent error in theoretical gravity (9.81 m/s2) and experimental gravity (using h average) for each height. How does the initial height effect our percent error?

Explanation / Answer

Solution:

1) The energy is lost in the form of heat due to the friction between the ball and the ground. So at each bounce it keeps losing its energy.

2) The initial potential energy mgh = kinetic energy 1/2mv^2 of the ball.

mgh = 1/2mv^2

3) The kinetic energy is given as 1/2 mv^2 .

Velocity decreases as the velocity keeps decreasing at every bounce due to friction . Ifthere were no fricion or internal forces, then the initial potential energy will be equal to the kinetic energy .

The % error = [(theoretical value - experimental value) / theoretical value ] * 100

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