Question

In an experiment the acceleration due to gravity one student holds a pencil at arm’s length and drops it. Another student starts a timer when the first student lets go and stops the timer when the pencil hits the ground. In an experiment to determine the acceleration due to gravity, one student holds a pencil at arm’s length and drops it. They repeat this several times and take an average. Is this a valid experiment, why or why not?

Answer 1

Answer: Not a valid experiment

Step-by-step explanation:

When an object freely falls then it starts with the speed of zero and gradually increases as it falls down. This is acceleration. Earth has acceleration due to gravity of about
`9.8m/s^2` which pulls the objects towards the earth.

It has been observed that heavy objects falls faster than the lighter objects. The dropping of pencil to measure the acceleration due to gravity is not an appropriate experiment because the sources of error is more and the environmental conditions might not be favorable.