An Investigation To See If Hookes Law Is Or Is Not reliable.

Factors: 

Factors that may affect this experiment are:

• A moving spring
• Spring passing yield point
• Measuring from same point each time

All these may or will affect the results of my experiment and alter the outcome in my conclusion.

All these should and will be kept a constant.

Apparatus:

• A spring
• Boss and Clamp
• 30cm ruler
• 100g weights

Diagram:

Method:

• For safety measures I will stand up during the whole experiment
• For fairness I will keep all the above factors a constant and use the same spring throughout.
• I will go up in 100g intervals every time until I reach a certain point making sure I do not exceed the springs yield point (where the spring is stretched so far it cannot return to its original position it may be slightly over its yield point but this can still affect measurements and can ruin the whole experiment.)
• I will repeat this experiment 3 times using the same spring as before and going up in the same weight intervals, after I will then take an average of the results and use the averages to plot my graph.
• Here is how I will do the experiment:

1. Set up stand and attach spring in position

2. Add a 100g weight and take a measurement, repeat until satisfied with number of measurements I have

3. Repeat whole experiment twice more, and calculate an average of each result and plot in a line of best-fit graph.

Results:

Graph:

On Graph paper

Conclusion:

My conclusion is that my prediction is now proved to be true as my graph shows there is a clear steady rise in extension, which Hookes Law states.

Evaluation:

I think my results are reliable because the experiment was repeated 3 times for fairness and all the results through each try were almost similar if not the same, which gave very good, averages leading towards a good graph.

My graph points I think are quite accurate, steadily rising in a diagonal direction, I have drawn a line of best fit by using that it showed me where some odd results were and also gave a guideline of where I should be and my results were very close to it. I could of gotten better results if I had used 50 g weights instead to give me a wider view of results and even more accurate than what I have now. I think my conclusion is reliable because everything ties together with the initial prediction and even if Hookes Law is not true my results give some good evidence that it possibly exists my conclusion is: true.