A Ball Rolling Down An Inclined Plane

He devised an experiment involving balls rolling down an inclined plane to test this theory.

A ball rolling down an inclined plane.

It consisted of a wooden ramp with a groove cut into it and a bronze ball. A bowling ball and billiard ball race ends in a tie for example. After many trials he observed that the amount of time it took for the ball to roll down the entire length of the ramp was equal to double the amount of time it took for the same ball to only roll a quarter of the distance. Just plug this information into the following equation.

You can use the formula with. The bronze ball would roll down the groove and he could track its motion due to gravity. It is wide enough 0 4 m to race objects side by side down the hill. Using a water clock galileo measured the time it took for the ball to roll a known distance down the inclined plane.

There is a ball rolling down an incline with no slipping. The figure shows an example of a cart moving down a ramp. Before looking at rolling objects let s look at a non rolling object. In physics you can calculate the velocity of an object as it moves along an inclined plane as long as you know the object s initial velocity displacement and acceleration.

Galileo s experimental apparatus was simple. Since the velocities do not depend on the size or mass of the object it s recommended that you first race similar objects. Generally having a greater mass means that a rolling object such as a ball will have a greater moment of inertia. The block can only accelerate in the direction along the plane.

For many years the effects of mass on objects rolling down an inclined plane have been studied and well known.