The concept of free fall is part of the knowledge to understand air resistance and consequently the speed with which objects fall. Without adequate knowledge of these concepts it would not be possible, for example, to use a parachute or go skydiving. The goal of the experiment was to neglect the drag force caused by air resistance and try to calculate the acylation using Suvat's equations. Comparing the results with the actual acceleration provides information on how air resistance affects these bodies. Theory To understand the concept of free fall it is first necessary to refer to Newton's Second Law of Motion, which states and is commonly known by the formula Where F is the force (N), m is the mass (kg) and a is the acceleration (m/s²). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In the scenario where a given object falls freely within the Earth's gravitational field, its acceleration will always be that due to gravity, equal to approximately 9.8 m/s². This acceleration is independent of the mass of the object since gravity will act equally on each object. If there were no other forces acting on objects, then every free-falling object under the same conditions would fall at that moment. However, this does not happen due to an opposing force exerted by the air, called resistance. In anyone falling towards the Earth, the acceleration will be directed downwards and the resistance upwards. This drag force helps to deaccelerate the body and is expressed by the formula Where p is the density of the air, A is the area of the object that is in contact with the air, Cd is the drag coefficient and v is the velocity . As the body begins to decelerate, it reaches a point where equation 1 will equal equation two, and at that point, the velocity will be constant. This concept is crucial as it helps us predict how fast an object will fall and what to do to reduce its landing speed. On the other hand, there are cases where the drag force is too small to ignore and in these cases we can use the SUVAT equations to determine the time or acceleration of the distance of something in free fall. Given the Suvat equation, where is the total distance, u0 is the initial velocity, t is the time and a is the acceleration. Using equation 5 you can find the acceleration, but there is also the possibility of plotting a graph of time squared versus distance, which would mean that the slope of the graph would be half of a, since in the formula we are using 2s. Experimental method To calculate the acceleration of the two balls, we used a series of devices which, connected to each other, could precisely calculate the time elapsed between the ball falling and its reaching the floor. A magnetic box was placed at the top so that when turned on, it would hold the balls (a small magnet was added to the plastic balls so they could maintain the suspense). Once the timer was activated, the drop box released the ball and when it reached the bottom detector, the smart timer provided the total amount of time taken. This can be seen in more detail in the images below: The safe was also set up in such a way that its height was adjustable and it was possible to try the experiment with different heights. The total distance was calculated using a tape measure. After collecting time measurements for several distances for each ball, a graph of time squared versus distance was created using the equation… and the gradient of that2.
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