Travis Pollard

Mg – the weight of the suspended sphere

D – the suspended ball’s distance from its equilibrium position

L – the length of the suspension

R – the separation between the two balls (center to center)

Experimentation

1st Reading

2nd Reading

Final Reading

Data Analysis

Over all, the three readings which I got when I performed this experiment all proved to be rather similar other than the last one which clearly shows the ball was simply just charged much less than the other two experimentations.  A very evident pattern throughout this entire experiment is that when the distance on the block of wood increased, so did the separation between the two balls.  This prove that although the ball on the block of wood was carrying the same amount of charge if moved closer or farther, but that if the ball moved closer, the distance repelled was much more because once the force came closer, it also became a greater force acting upon the suspended ball.  

Conclusion

        The conclusion which I have drawn from this experiment is that as the ball carrying the actual charge comes closer to the suspended ball, the balls repel almost the same distance, but the ball hanging will go farther from where it had begun, its equilibrium.  This is a logical explanation of two forces acting in opposite directions therefore repelling on one another.  Overall this experiment proved to be a good way to better understand electrostatics.  Although the experiment was rather clear and there was not much room for error, there still are a few aspects in which our results could have caused our results to have been varied.  One of them is that each test ball we used, we had rubbed at a different intensity and at a different amount of time with the wool sheets.  This means that each individual ball that we used to conduct the experiment had a different charge from the one used previous to it and the one used after it.  Another aspect is that if we needed to move quickly because as time progressed, the ball slowly lost its charge into the air around it.  This means that if we took too long moving the ball on the block of wood, our results would not have proved to be true.  Also a few other factors could have played a part such as the table being knocked and the ball swaying as a result of this.