Physics Experiment

Hello people. Try to think of an experiment to measure the value of g(acceleration due to gravity) using a soccer ball and other materials. State all your assumptions and describe the use of any apparatus.

Pelt Stephen Hawking with the soccer ball until he tells you.

Ingest the soccer ball, masticate well and add excess Sodium Hydroxide. This should cause an exothermic reaction that produces ammonium chloride, which gives electrons to the Hydrochloric acid in your stomach to form Helium.
After the redox reaction is finished, float 50 metres into the air and unhinge your jaw allowing the less denser helium to escape through convection. Hold a stopwatch and measure how fast you fall. The average human reaction time is 0.3 seconds slower, so subtract that off when calculating.
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All you need is to drop a soccer ball of a measured height, time the descent from the release to hitting the ground, and then record the value.  Rinse and repeat ~20 times, and then there's your value.

You don't need to worry about reaction times, as your reaction time is a negligible error when you take reaction times of both the ball release and the ball hitting the ground with ~0.05 seconds maximum difference (unless you're drunk/stoned when doing this ;))

You could also try to make one giant pendulum with a soccer ball (assuming no friction, perfect point mass, no errors from the string), but I forget exactly how to do that.

>>4

That would measure average velocity during the drop. You need to measure the velocity at two points, using light gates and compootar software.

>>5

The velocity at point one in my example is zero, as it is at a fixed point to begin. (v=0)  The velocity at the second point is acceleration multiplied by time. (v=at).  The average velocity is 0.5at, so all you need to do is to double the average velocity, and then you get x=at, which rearranges to (x/v)=a, which gives you the acceleration.

Editing mistakes:

Should be v=at instead of x=at, and (v/t)=a instead of (x/v)=a

There's still air to slow the ball down. Maybe if you did more than 2 measurements you could fit a curve.

>>6

That equation was for lateral velocity.
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>>3
That's chemistry

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delta x = (1/2) g t^2

1. Measure distance and time.
2. ???
3. Profit!

>>12
Gravity isn't the only force acting on the ball.

>>13
negligable. heavy ball, long distance etc.

AIR RESISTANCE

>>16
Same person.

1) ball
2) board painted with meter increments
3) video camera
4) time hack for said camera
5) assume neglible wind resistence.

Set up the board against a wall....hold the ball at the top of the board and drop it. Record it falling with the camera, while at the same time timing it. You can then use this info to find acceleration.

>>14
that should be short distance so that the ball doesn't acheive terminal velocity and the air resitance doesn't slow it down too much.