Kinetic and Potential Energy of Magnets

Purpose:
The purpose of the lab is to develop a correlation between the function of a force and the kinetic energy of an objected that is acted on by the force.

Equipment Used:

The track is an air track which allows for a glider to move as if it is frictionless, in reality there is a tiny amount of friction but it can be considered to be negligible. There is a magnet at the end of the track and a magnet on the glider. The glider will be sent into the magnet and it will be repelled, the motion sensor at the end of the track by the magnet will be used to calculate the position and to calculate the speed of the glider before, during, and after the collision.




Data Collected:
First, a function for the force the magnet exerts on another magnet needs to be created before any experiment can be performed. This was done by raising the far end of the air track, thus having the glider have the acceleration of gsin(angle). When the glider is stopped by the magnet, then the force that the magnet is exerting at the distance away from the magnet is equal to the mass of the glider times the acceleration. As the angle became larger, the distance that separated the two magnets became smaller.

Using computer software an equation can be created for the force the magnet exerts based on the distance between the magnets. The integral of that function gives the potential energy of the magnet. The potential energy and the kinetic energy are equal to the total energy of the system, so the total energy of the entire system through the entire experiment should be a constant value. The formula for the potential energy of this magnet = (.0001344/1.011)x^-1.011.

Conclusion:
From the graph it can be seen that the red line, which is used to represent the total energy of the system, stays at a fairly constant level. The yellow line, which represents the kinetic energy of the system, is level with the total energy of the system at the beginning and at the end. The magnetic potential energy of the system is very small in the beginning and in the end of the experiment as it should be. Since the two follow the relationship that is expected between potential energy and kinetic energy then it can be said that the formula derived for the potential energy of the magnet is very accurate.

Sincerely,

Swaggy C