Keywords: Air track motion, Newton’s Second Law, Force, Acceleration, Friction-free,

Net force.

Introduction

An air track is a scientific device used to study motion in low friction

environment.Air is pumped through a hollow track with fine holes all along the track
that allows specially fitted air track cars to glide relatively friction-free. Air tracks are
usually triangular in cross-section. Carts which have a triangular base and fit neatly
on to the top of the track are used to study motion in low friction environments.
When an air track is connected with an air blower, compressed air is sprayed from
the holes on the surface and form a thin air layer. This air layer will fill the space
between the air track and the inner surface of a glider. As a result, the movement of
the glider can be regarded as friction-free movement. With the help of an air blower
and a digital timer, the air track can be used to experimentally study important
physics concepts . Many different experiments are possible,including determining the
distance travelled by the object as a function of time, velocity of an object as a
function of time, to determine the acceleration of an object as a function of the inert
mass and to determine the acceleration as a function of force. It was invented in the
mid-1960s at the California Institute of Technology by Prof Nehr and Leighton based
on Newton’s Law of motion on relationships between velocity, acceleration, force,
mass and so on. It was first presented by them at a meeting of the American
Physical Society in NYC in 1965 where it was viewed by Prof John Stull, Alfred
University, and Frank Ferguson, the Ealing Corporation. The original track was about
1 meter long with tiny air orifices and highly compressed air where he developed a
simple version using standard square aluminum tubing with large air orifices and air
from the vent of a shop vacuum cleaner. (Revolvy,2017). According to Newton's
second law an object will accelerate in the direction of the net force. Since the force
of friction is opposite to the direction of travel, this acceleration causes the object to
slow its forward motion, and eventually stop.The purpose of this laboratory exercise
is to verify Newton's second law. In order to see if this simple theory will allow
accurate theoretical acceleration. A mass hanging from a string over a pulley will act
as the accelerating mass, applying a force to accelerate the object being observed.
The force this accelerating mass,ma applies can be determined by multiplying the
mass by the acceleration of gravity (Wittman&David,2018). The accelerating force is
then responsible for accelerating not only the object in question, but the accelerating
mass as well. The acceleration then, can be calculated from the equation. In this
experiment, we will attempt to verify Newton’s second law by using a known force to
accelerate a frictionless object. We will then compared the actual acceleration of that
object to the theoretically predicted acceleration. In this laboratory report, we
present the results of this experiment and compare our experimental results with the
theory of Newton’s Second Law.
Reference for intro:

 Revolvy, LLC.(2017), “‘Air Track’ on Revolvy.com.”

www.revolvy.com/page/Air-track?mt=1
 Wittman, David M. “Acceleration and Force.” Oxford Scholarship Online,
2018, https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/page/subscribe