Investigate how the height of drop affects the height of bounce.

The first 200 words of this essay...

PHYSICS COURSEWORK

AIM: -

* I am going to investigate how the height of drop affects the height of bounce.

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE: -

* At rest the when the ball is above the surface it has Gravitational Potential Energy. When the ball is dropped the Gravitational Potential Energy is converted to Kinetic Energy. When the ball bounces back the kinetic energy changes back to Gravitational Potential Energy.

* The ball does not return to it's original height because some of the kinetic energy is lost and converted to other form of energies such as sound energy, elastic potential energy, thermal energy and friction. At the bottom, just before the bounce, this energy is now all in the form of kinetic energy. After the bounce, the ball and the ground or floor have absorbed some of that energy and have become warmer and have made a noise. When the ball hits the floor it exerts a force on the floor and the floor exerts a force on the ball. This force compresses the ball. But because the material the ball is made of is not perfectly elastic, internal friction converts some of the energy into thermal