Republic of the Philippines

PRESIDENT RAMON MAGSAYSAY STATE UNIVERSITY

(Former Ramon Magsaysay Technological University)
Iba, Zambales
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Determining the Value of the Acceleration Due to Gravity using

Freefall

Submitted by:
Klevston Eliakim Santos
Kirby Joshua R. Bautista
Roselle Mae Anne Ines
Janiño De Vega
Russel Anulao

Submitted to:
Luciano M. Medrano Jr.

Introduction
Acceleration due to gravity is one of the most fundamental and intriguing concepts in

Physics. The motion of an object within Earth’s locale is governed by the force that attracts the

object, mono-dimensionally, towards its center. This acceleration is believe combination of

Earth’s mass and the centrifugal force produced from Earth’s rotation.

The concept of gravity dictates out weight. A 75 kilograms person here on Earth can

weighs low as ten kilograms on the moon— this is because gravity is stronger here on Earth than

on the moon.

The measurement of gravity has been done countless of times throughout history. For

example, during the ancient times, the rate of which the object will fall is believed to have a

strong correlation with its weight. In recent years however, people have developed very precise

ways of measuring the acceleration due to gravity using apparatus called gravimeters. These

apparatus can provide very accurate determination of local gravity with extreme resolution as it

utilizes different materials and method the provide precision. This is done by the automated

instruments themselves minimizing the errors encountered during tests. The underlying principle

within these instruments however is often narrowed down on the mechanics of a pendulum or the

time it takes for a freefalling object to reach a certain distance or height.

The aim of this experiment is to determine the rate of acceleration due to gravity by free-

falling objects minimizing the errors by repeating the number of observation to achieve a pattern

of stability of data distribution and then draw conclusion using this data with the standard laws of

statistics.
Review of Related Literature

The general theory is that acceleration due to gravity— often denoted as ‘g’, has a value

of 980.665 cm/s2 (9.80665 m/s2) (The International System of Units (SI), National Institute of

Standards and Technology, p. 52, NIST Special Publication 330, 2008 Edition)) near Earth’s

surface. [1]

Philosopher Aristotle asserted that the speed of which the object falls to ground depends

on its mass. This what was believed until many years later, in 1604, when an Italian scientist

Galileo executed and experiment to dispute the claim. The scientist is said to have dropped two

objects of different masses on top of the Leaning tower of Pisa— which both landed at the same

time. This lead to the conclusion that every object in free-fall falls at the same rate thereby

evidencing the universality of gravitational acceleration. [2]

Additionally, there are three laws of gravitation which include Newton’s law of

gravitation, Kepler’s law of gravitation, and Gauss’s law for gravity. All of which provides

notable insight to how gravity works. These laws however often applies to large scale models

where the effects of mass between two objects are significant to one another (i.e. planetary

system models). Like stated, neglecting external factors such as air resistance, all small bodies

will have an acceleration at the same rate relative to center of mass which is given to be Earth

itself. [3]

There are also given variations of acceleration due to gravity, of which being affected by

several factors. The parameters affecting the strength of Earth’s gravity, altitude, and local

topography. But most of these factors are often disregarded as the variations of gravitational

acceleration near Earth’s surface are relatively similar across different location. The latitude of
location, nonetheless, contributes most to the variation to gravity. This is because the inertia

produced by Earth’s rotation is stronger than at the polar latitude. The inertia also causes the

Earth’s equatorial bulges putting objects at the equator farther the Earth’s center. [3]

In basic theory however, acceleration due to gravity can be described with kinematics. In

such manner, Galileo determined the rate of gravitation acceleration [4]. As such, an object

undergoing a uniform acceleration along one dimension can be describe by the motion equation:

1
x= a t 2+ v o + x o (Eq. 1)
2
Where x is the height, a is the acceleration, vo is the initial velocity, and xo is starting height.

If the object starts from rest and a reference point is chosen in such a way that the starting

position becomes 0 then equation reduces to:

1
x= a t 2 (Eq .2)
2

Which states the distance travelled by an object is proportional and the square of time

elapsed. Galileo, deduced this formula geometrically using Merton’s Rule of uniform

acceleration, which states that if the rate of change of quantity is constant, it’s average value is

halfway between final and initial value.[5] This proves that:

1
rate of change= a (Eq. 3)
2
Methodology
The materials used during the experiment are; digital stop watch, and a certain object.

The gathering procedure will simply be observation of multiple trials that will be conducted in

variations of a certain element. Ultimately, the experiments involved an object being dropped

from different height and the time it took for it to reach the ground is measured. The set-up for

the experiment was such that the object will be drop from rest, from hand at certain heights. The

height above ground will be first measured using a 3 tape meter. The object that was chosen to

be dropped was a baseball. The weight of the object was not taken as factor for the experiment.

For each height, the trial is repeated three times and the mean (average) time is calculated. This

is repeated on several heights. From the recorded height and it’s time of descent, a simple linear

regression can be modeled— with height as the dependent variable and time as independent

variable. The slope of the regression should be the value for the acceleration due to gravity.

BALL
VARIED HEIGHT

Figure 1.1 – A diagram of the

process to be conducted for the
experiment.
GROUND
LEVEL
 Figure 1.2 – A picture of the
researchers conducing the
experiment.

Analysis of Results and Discussion

Table 2.1 – raw data acquired from the experiment.

Height (H) First Trial Second Trial Third Trial Average Time (T)
0.5 0.4 0.62 0.3 0.440
0.75 0.54 0.24 0.42 0.398
1 0.4 0.53 0.49 0.474
1.25 0.48 0.46 0.46 0.467
1.5 0.56 0.51 0.52 0.531
1.75 0.7 0.54 0.61 0.617
2 0.63 0.63 0.65 0.637
2.25 0.72 0.70 0.68 0.699
2.5 0.73 0.73 0.74 0.735
2.75 0.79 0.76 0.76 0.772
3 0.82 0.73 0.8 0.782

Table 1 shows the raw data from the first, second, third trial of the conducted

experiments as well as the average of three trials. A linear regression model with height being

explained by the average time was constructed and it showed that time of fall (T) indeed has an

excellent correlation to the height of the fall (H) (P < 0.001).

 3.5

vertical Displacement/Height
2.5
f(x) = 3.07 x
2 R² = 0.95

1.5

0.5

0
0.350 0.400 0.450 0.500 0.550 0.600 0.650 0.700 0.750 0.800 0.850
Average Time of Fall

Figure 2.1. Regression line of Height vs Average time of fall.

Table 2.2 — Relationship between height(H) and average time of fall(T)

Model Regression Equation r2
Raw data H = 3.0706T 73.2%
Natural log transformed ln(H) = 2.209ln(T) + 1.6332 88.11%
Squared time H = 4.845T2 95.88%

Figure 2.1 shows the relationship between height of fall and average time of fall. Since it

is known, by experience and through experiment, that when the height is zero, the time will also

be zero, and thus the regression line should pass the origin— the intercept of the regression

model was forced to be zero. By performing a regression analysis, we found out the slope of the

regression was 3.0706, thus giving the regression equation H=3.0706 T with an R2 of 73.2%.

The goodness of fit (r2) of the model suggested that a transformation of the data might be needed.

Regression analysis between ln(H) and ln(T) are shown in table 2.2. Time is still an

important variable for natural log transform model (P < 0.001). Analysis of our data reveals the

equation ln(H) = n ln(T) + 1.6332 where n equals 2.209. This model provided an r 2 value of

88.11%. This equation may also be stated as H = e1.6332T2.209. By approximating the n value from
our data to be 2, then Galileo’s theory that the vertical displacement is proportional to the square

of time (as shown in equation 2) will agree on our findings. As such, by performing a test on n

such that n = 2, we found no statistical evidence to support that there is significant difference

between the acquired value of n which is 2.209 and the ideal value of n, 2 (P < 0.05).

The relationship between H and T2 are shown in figure shown in Figure 2.2. As

established in table 2.2, the analysis of the transformed data inferred that the regression model of

Height = 4.5445 * Time2, with time of fall being a significant predictor (P < 0.001). In

determining which regression is better, (H vs T or H vs T2) we found out that there is significant

improvement goodness of fit for H vs T2 regression with an r2 of 95.88%.

3.5

3
Height/ Vertoca; Displace,ent

f(x) = 4.72 x
2.5 R² = 0.99

1.5

0.5

0
0.100 0.200 0.300 0.400 0.500 0.600 0.700
Average Time Squared

Figure 2.2. Regression line of Height vs square of average time of fall.

In summary, the regression model Height = 4.5445 * Time2 was chosen by us to be better

fit as pointed out by the difference models’ r2 value. Furthermore, the theory (Equation 2) agrees

better with this model. As such, we can relate the said model to the Galileo’s model of free fall
height = ½ * acceleration * time2. This suggests that for every square of time passes, the distance

increases by 4.5445. Using Equation 3, we found out that our experimental the rate of

acceleration due to gravity is 9.69 m/s2.

While the theoretical value of acceleration due to gravity is 9.80667 ≈ 9.81 m/s2, by

performing a t- test such that the hypotheses are:

h0 : β=9.81h1 : β ≠ 9.81

The test gave us a T value of -0.181, and significance level of (P < 0.05), which led us to

conclude that there is no reason to believe that there is no significant difference between the

theoretical and our experimental value of acceleration due to gravity.

Recommendation

It was concluded within the limits values of the experiment that the average value of the

experimental value due to gravity was found to be 9.69 m/s 2 , while the theoretical acceleration

due gravity is 9.80665 m/s2 . After comparing the theoretical and acquired experimental values, it

was found out that there is a 0.11665 m/s 2 difference which is 1.18% difference. The difference

was caused by the encountered errors such as the precision of the method use. As such, the

researchers recommended that future experiments involving or at least relating to the same

subject to practice precise methods of data gathering such as the use a device that can record

time accurately in the relation of the fall of the object. Furthermore, the effects of the external

factors may be minimize if the experiments were to be conducted on a controlled environment.

References
 1. Taylor, Barry N.; Thompson, Ambles,eds (March 2008). The International System of

Units .(SI). National Institute of Standards and Technology.

2. Rovelli, Carlo (2005). “Aristotle’s Physics: A Physicist’s Look”. Journal of the American

.Philosophical Association. 1. 23-40.

3. A. M. Dziewonski, D. L. Andderson (1981). “Preliminary reference Earth Model”.

4. Discourses, Galileo .

5. Nicole Oresme and the Medieval Geometry of Qualities and Motion.

Appendix
Appendix A- 1, Screen capture from R software while performing “linear model” function to
create a simple linear regression model from the data.

Appendix A-2, Screen capture from R Software while performing a “summary” function to
perform a t-test on the created linear regression model.
Appendix A-3, Screen Capture from R Software while performing “ANOVA” function to use
Analysis of Variance test on the created linear regression model.