Magnets with same ends behave like springs. They push away from each other. But unlike honest springs, magnets are troublesome and mysterious. They don't behave according to a convenient rule like hooke's law . In comes the students, whose job this time is to find a relationship between the force a magnet exerts and the distance between the magnets.
Lab:
The students will solve the mystery by setting up a system where they can measure the force vs distance of colliding magnets and see if the energy is conserved after collision.
This is done with an air track to create a frictionless surface and a glider with a magnet attached. And a motion sensor.
The air track was put on a slope so that the glider would accelerate toward the magnet. The angle of the slope was recorded.
The angle was changed five times and the experiment repeated. Students used this data to plot force vs distance.
Students used the force vs distance graph to find the relationship of energy of the magnet.
The students then repeated the experiment on a flat angel and a motion sensor to find velocity and position vs time. They used this information to create a graph of the potential and kinetic energies.
Conclusion
The red in the graph is the total energy and the graph shows that energy was mostly conserved barring air friction.
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