A Case of the Mondays

Friday was a test day for Physics D, E and F, with Intro Physics reviewing for their exam which occurred today. So, it was on the upperclassmen to carry on with new content and Physics D began with an overview of the nature of forces and the use of free-body diagrams to assess and represent forces acting on an object. We contrasted contact and field forces, related forces to acceleration, practiced drawing free-body diagrams for various situations, then used those diagrams to calculate the net force acting on an object. Don't lose sight of those vector skills from last chapter because, as you saw today, they're going to come in handy. Tomorrow is a lab investigation on forces and acceleration, and our work with free-body diagrams the the net force is going to come in handy.

That lab was on the plate for Physics F and Honors Physics today, with Honors Physics conducting it during their long block and Physics F finishing it during a short block, since the test Friday ate into the designated lab block. For all, Atwood's machine was constructed, with two main tests being run - (1)what happens when the total mass remains constant and mass difference between sides changes and (2)what happens when mass difference remains constant but the total mass of the system changes. We'll go over this lab tomorrow and talk about concepts relevant to analyzing the data and working on that final question - the single formula for acceleration in this system.