Examining the relationship between net force and acceleration in a pulley system
Keywords:
force, mass, acceleration, cart, pulley, Newton's second law, gravityAbstract
This experiment tested Newton’s second law of motion, F=ma, by examining the relationship between the applied force, the mass of a system, and its resulting acceleration. A cart was placed on a rail and connected to a hanging mass via a pulley system. By varying the hanging mass, the experiment allowed for changes in both the total system mass and the applied force. This design provided a range of conditions under which the relationship between force, mass, and acceleration could be analyzed. Measurements of the applied gravitational force from the hanging mass and the cart's acceleration were used to evaluate if the acceleration matched theoretical predictions based on F=ma. Results showed a proportional relationship between force and acceleration for a given mass, supporting Newton’s second law.
References
P. A. Tipler and G. Mosca, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 5th ed. (W H Freeman and Company, New York, 2004).
R Core Team, R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria (2024). https://www.R-project.org/
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