INCLINED PLANES AND FRICTIONAL FORCES

The above 4 masses all have a low value for the coefficient of static friction and all are the same. Set the angle to 10 degrees by moving the slider bar all the way to the left. Select a mass and hit the start button and wait for the object to reach the bottom. In all cases you should be recording:

Object	Angle	Time	Red/Blue	Green/White

Where time means time it takes for object to get to the bottom, Red/Blue and Green/white means a qualitative assessment of which of the two arrows is bigger (note that not all 4 of them may be visible all the times). Select different objects and do the experiment in all 3 of th experimental windows on this page and make sure you record all your data.

After doing this, concentrate on the following questions:

What are the meanings of the 4 vector components shown (i.e. red,blue,green and white)?

What length vector has to be longer that what other one for the object to actually slide down the inclined plane?

Which object slides the farthest in 10 seconds and which object slides the least amount in 10 seconds?

In this case, what controls how far the object slides and why is that the case?

In the remaining two applets, each object has a different amount of friction. Devise a way for measuring the coefficient of static friction using this applet and assess the relative values from one object to the next. In the first of these two situations, all the objects have the same mass, but each has a different coefficient of static friction. In the second case, objects have both different masses and maybe or maybe not different coefficients of static friction. That is for you to determine.

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