Monday, September 26, 2011

9/22 Experiment 7: Introduction to Reflection and Refraction



We use a plastic semicircular shape and shine the light from one end and see the angle it changed due to the refraction of the light in different medium. According to Shell's law, the light will first been refracted due to the change medium from air to plastic, and refracted second due to the change medium from plastic to air again.

First part of the experiment is to shine the light from the flat surface of the plastic and measure the angle changed from the other end of the plastic

Second part of the experiment is to shine the light from the other way around, which is from the arc then measure the angle change from the flat surface

The data that we accuqired:


First


θ_1 (degree) θ_2(Degree) sin(θ1) sin(θ2)
0 180 0.000 0.000
5 177 0.087 0.052
10 174 0.174 0.105
15 169 0.259 0.191
20 167 0.342 0.225
30 162 0.500 0.309
40 157 0.643 0.391
50 150 0.766 0.500
60 147 0.866 0.545
70 144 0.940 0.588




Second


0 180 0.000 0.000
5 175 0.087 0.087
10 163 0.174 0.292
15 155 0.259 0.423
17 150 0.292 0.500
20 147 0.342 0.545
25 138 0.423 0.669
30 128 0.500 0.788
35 117 0.574 0.891
40 103 0.643 0.974

If we graph θ_2 vs. θ_1  and sin(θ_2) vs. sin(θ_1)













According to Snell's Law
n_air*sin(θ1)= n_plastic*sin(θ2) = n_air * sin(θ3)

the θ we measure in experiment is the θ1 and θ3 which are the angle of light goes into the plastic and the angel comes out from the plastic.  The ratio of the sin of thetas will be the index of refraction of the plastic. From both experiments, the index of refraction is almost the same, which is around 1.5 to 1.58. This is within the uncertainties since we measure the average angle due to the light does not shine exactly. Even thought the theta vs. theta graph we fit with a linear graph, actual graph should look something different from linear. The graph should look something curvy. The reason the graph does not look perfectly curvy is the inaccurate of reading the degrees from protractor. Also, when we do the second part of the experiment, after certain degrees, the light will be trapped in the prism so we cannot measure the angle beyond the mmaximum incident angle.

Monday, September 12, 2011

9/8 Experiment 4: Standing Waves

Introduction:
In this experiment, a string is attached to a mechanism which give certain frequency that can generate

waves on the string. The velocity of the wave will be determine by the tension of the string and the mass

per unit length of the string. v=(T/u)^(1/2). The frequency of the mechanism will be adjust by a function generator that we can adjust the nob into the desire frequency



Analyze:


Constants u








0.001165kg/m

















Case 1 (w/ 123cm and 200.2g) 1 loop 2 loops 3 loops 4 loops 5 loops 6 loops 7 loops 8 loops 9 loops
node 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
antinode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
frequency(Hz) 17 36 51 71 86 104 122 140 158
wave length(m) 2.460 1.230 0.820 0.615 0.492 0.410 0.351 0.308 0.273
velocity(m/s) 41.82 44.28 41.82 43.665 42.312 42.64 42.87429 43.05 43.18667
avg velocity







42.84977

1.060431375 2.045551 1.060431 0.664596 0.289199 0.044004 0.000601 0.040091 0.113498
uncertainty







2.306166
Case 2 (w/ 131cm and 100g) 1 loop 2 loops 3 loops 4 loops 5 loops 6 loops 7 loops 8 loops 9 loops
node 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
antinode 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
frequency(Hz) 11 ? 34 46 56 63 77 93 102
wave length(m) 2.620 1.310 0.873 0.655 0.524 0.437 0.374 0.328 0.291
velocity 28.82 #VALUE! 29.69333 30.13 29.344 27.51 28.82 30.4575 29.69333
avg velocity







29.30852

0.238652605
0.148081 0.674828 0.001259 3.234677 0.238653 1.320153 0.148081









2.450384




















































































































































case 1
Theoretical velocity: 41.04m/s +- 0.17m/s


experiment velocity:43.07m/s +- 2.3 m/s

Both values are within their uncertainty, which they are consistent to each others

Case 2:
Theoretical velocity: 29.02 +-  0.23 m/s



Experimental Velocity :29.70+- 2.45m/s

Both values are within their uncertainties, which mean they agree with themselves


The ratio of velocities between case 1 and case 2 is about 1.38, which is close to radical 2 as we expected

Both cases' frequencies followed the patter of f = vn/2L  where v is the wave velocity, n is the number of antinode, and L is the length of the string. As we expected, when the wave lengths are the same, the lower velocity requires lover frequency inorder to reach certain resonance frequency. On the other hand, the higher the velocity requires higher frequency to reach the resonance frequency.

In case 1, the ration between first and second harmonic frequency is 2.11, and between second and thrid is 1.4, between third and fourth is 1.39. As we can see, the ratio decreases as the number of harmonic frequency increases. In case 2, it also has the same pattern occured.