Question

A student must determine how the mass of a block affects the period of oscillation when the block is attached to a vertical spring. The value of the spring constant is known. The student writes the following experimental procedure.
1. Use an electronic balance to measure the mass of the block.
2. Attach the block to the vertical spring.
3. Displace the block from the system's equilibrium position to a new vertical position.
4. Release the block from rest.
5. Use a meterstick to measure the vertical displacement of the center of mass of the block from the system's equilibrium position to its maximum vertical position above the equilibrium position.
6. Use a stopwatch to measure the time it takes for the system to make ten complete oscillations.
7. Repeat the experiment for different vertical displacements and block masses.

Which of the following steps of the procedure should the student revise to make the determination? Justify your selection.

a. Step 3, because the student must specify whether the new vertical position should be above or below the system's equilibrium position.
b. Step 5, because the meterstick should be used to measure total displacement of the system from its lowest vertical position to its highest vertical position.
c. Step 6, because the stopwatch should be used only to measure the time it takes for the system to make 1 complete oscillation.
d. Step 7, because the experiment should not be repeated for different vertical displacements and block masses.

Answer 1

Answer:

the step that the student should change is step 7

Explanation:

The movement of the spring with block is a simple harmonic type movement, so the procedure proposed by the student is correct, but we must take some care.

Step 3 is important since each movement will be started with similar conditions, also if any displacement is very large we can get out of the linear approximation of Hooke's law, for which we need to know the equilibrium point, since from this point displacements will be measured.

Step 6 should be changed to measure various oscillations to find the average period and thus decrease the error in the time reading.

Step 7 is wrong since the objective of the experiment is to analyze the effect of different masses in the period of oscillation and this step prevents this objective from being carried out.

In conclusion, the step that the student should change is step 7