NEWTONS SECOND LAW OF MOTION

Tolentino, Paul Diony S.

PHY10L/B4
CE-2

1. INTRODUCTION
The second law of motion, as stated by Newton, means that an object needs a net force in order to
move or accelerate. In this experiment, we were tasked to check if the net force is directly proportional to
acceleration.
2. METHODOLOGY
The main materials needed were the cart, weights and smart timer. At the first part, the mass of
the hanging weight was increased each trial. In the second part, the process was the vice versa of the first
while in the last part, both masses were increased each trial. The time of travel was measured using the
timer and used to compute for the experimental acceleration. While for the actual acceleration, the masses
were the ones used to compute.
3. DATA AND RESULTS
The time recorded in the first part were ranging from 1.7secs to 0.836secs and the accelerations
computed were 0.373m/s^2 to 1.619m/s^2(accepted value) and 0.32m/s^2 to 1.43m/s^2(experimental). In
the second, the time was from 0.79sec to 1.02secs and the accelerations were 1.62m/s^2 to
0.97m/s^2(accepted) and 1.41m/s^2 to 0.825m/s^2(experimental). In the last part, with both masses
increasing, the time of travel recorded was from 1.787secs to 1.0851secs. The accelerations were
0.3732m/s^2 to 0.9749m/s^2(accepted) and 0.313m/s^2 to 0.849m/s^2(experimental). The maximum
percent error of the whole was 16.13%
4. ANALYSIS
In this experiment, we were able to compute the acceleration using the formulas a=
(m2g)/(m1+m2) and a=2s/t. In the first and second part, we were able to deduce that the acceleration is
directly proportional to the net force and inversely proportional to the mass. How? In the first part, when
the hanging weights force was increased by adding weights, the time of travel was shortened therefore it
tells us that acceleration also increased. In the second part, when the mass of the cart was increased, the
time of travel was increased. This means that as the cart gets heavier, the slower it is pulled by the
hanging weight. Whenever the acceleration goes up, so does the net force. Whenever the mass increases,
the acceleration goes down instead. The last experiment showed us that when both the mass and net force
increases, the acceleration also goes up. Also, we had a lot of errors because the equipment lent to us
seemed to have defects so I would recommend the future performers of this experiment to make sure the
equipments are in good form.