Purpose: The purpose of this experiment is to hypothesize an equation for magnetic potential energy and use it to verify that the conservation of energy applies to the system.
Apparatus:
The apparatus would be to place a glider on an air track to serve as a cart on a frictionless surface.
Theory:
When the glider is at its closest to the magnet at the end of the track, the KE is zero and all the energy is magnetic potential energy. The cart then rebounds and the magnetic potential energy is converted back to KE. In order to find the magnetic PE, we need to raise the air track so that the cart reaches an equilibrium point where the magnetic repulsion force between the magnets is equal to the gravitational force component on the cart parallel to the track. After that, we can integrate that force equation as a hypothesis of the magnetic PE equation. From such equation, we can verify that energy is conserved in this system.
Data:
Graphs/Calculations:
Analysis:
From the graph, it can be seen that the model that we came up with held true. The equation that we derived for the magnetic PE works, as the KE and MPE graphs do satisfy each other.
Conclusion:
The model works, and it seem that energy is mostly conserved. There is a slight bump, which can be due to the uncertainty in the force equation we arrived at in the force vs distance graph as well as a slight chance of still some friction on the air track.
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