The purpose of this lab is to find an equation for the magnetic potential energy.
Above is an air track with an air glider. A magnet is attached to the air glider an we tilt the system at an angle by adding more books to the bottom. There is also a magnet at the end of the air track, which repels the cart some distance. In an "ideal" situation the track is completely frictionless by letting air go through the miniature holes in the track.
This is the result of of trials. Where we tested eight different angles and received eight different equilibrium points for the distance between the two magnets.
Using the angles and the distances between the two magnets, we were able to graph a force vs distance graph. By integrating the graph we were able to get the kinetic, potential, and total energy of the graph.
Our data set used to obtain the force vs distance graph.
What our force vs distance graph looked like
Integrating our force vs distance graph to get the energies in the system.
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The picture above shows the kinetic energy in purple, the potential in green, and the goal energy in orange.
In the picture below, a straight line should be made for the total energy as no energy should be lost. So if it started with 750 joules the system should end with 750 joules.
Our total energy is not a straight line, which was unexpected. This could be due to human error such as incorrectly determining the equilibrium point and also due to friction. While our graph was not horrible, there was quite a bit of error in the experiment.
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