Re: Newton's 2nd law Lab

[John Gastineau <john@GASTINEAU.ORG>]

> -----Original Message-----
> [mailto:PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU]On Behalf Of James W. Wheeler
>
> And yet we do a force table lab (in my case before any N2 labs) in which
> we assign the weight hung from the pulley to be the magnitude of a force
> vector whose direction (in 2 dimensions) is measured with a protractor.
> This is NOT a swindle, but assumes some degree of common sense or
> experience.

Perhaps then, it would be better to not use pulleys in this experiment. It'd
be cleaner to just use two, three or four spring scales (or force sensors, but
that's expensive) on a purely two-dimensional system. Why complicate things
with a third dimension when it is not necessary?

JEG
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John E. Gastineau      john@gastineau.org               KC8IEW
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