The purpose of this activity is to be able to determine the velocity of wave in a spring. To do this, two people will hold each end of the spring and the spring will be moved as the procedure in the following picture shows:
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| Procedure of the activity |
The data taken is as follow:
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| The data of 3 different wavelength (on the left) and the time it takes to achieve 10 cycle (on the right) |
By using the data obtained, these calculations are obtained:
Trial 1:
length of string = 3m ; wavelength = 6m ; period = 0.9 ± 0.02 s
frequency = 1.11 Hz
v = f * wavelength = 6.66m/s
Trial 2:
length of string = 3m ; wavelength = 3m ; period = 0.44 ± 0.02 s
frequency = 2.23 Hz
v = 6.69m/s
Trial 3:
length of string = 3m ; wavelength = 2m ; period = 0.24 ± 0.02 s
frequency = 4.17 Hz
v = 8.34m/s
Conclusion
By using the data obtained, the value for trial 3 seems unreasonable so it is not relevant. Some of the error that could contribute to data being unreliable is that the standing wave for trial 3 is really fast and it is rather difficult to keep track of the number of cycle. Furthermore, the more the nodes in the waves, the more affected it is by the time of human reactions since the timekeeper in this experiment is different from the person who keeps track of the cycle. Based on data 1 and 2, the average velocity appears to be 6.67 ± 0.02 m/s. The uncertainty is quite small but it has the same reason as discussed above that it yields some discrepancy in the values.
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