Tag Archives: Galileo

The ticker tape timer works by making dots on a paper tape at equal time intervals (approximately every 0.1s in this experiment). It is an excellent way for beginning physics students to experience the measurement of motion. Students will record and graph the motion of a car that moves with constant acceleration. Results of this lab are typically very good. The velocity vs. time graph will be a straight line with positive slope, where the slope is equal to the car’s acceleration. The position vs. time graph will be a parabola.

In Galileo’s time, stopwatches had not been invented. He needed a way to measure the short time it took for a ball to roll down an incline. The set-up you will use is nearly identical to what Galileo would have used. Just like Galileo, students will measure the time it takes for a ball to roll down an incline by the amount of water released during the roll.

A truck is traveling 60mph, a baseball shoots out of the back at 60mph. Do you really expect the ball to drop straight down?

alileo theorized that in the absence of any other force, a moving object will continue to move. He called this resistance to changes in motion, inertia. Sir Isaac Newton later polished this concept – turning it into his first law, the Law of Inertia. From his Principia:Every object continues in a state of rest or of uniform speed in a straight line unless acted on by a nonzero net force.