© Nicolette Lunsingh Tonckens

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Investigating How Mass Affects Time Period of Oscillation

Candidate Number:

Group 4: Physics HL

Word count:1,849

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 © Nicolette Lunsingh Tonckens

Table of Contents

1. Introduction – page 3

2. Method – page 4

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

3. Raw data – page 5

4. Processed data – page 6

5. Graphs – page 8

6. Analysis – page 10

7. Conclusion – page 13

8. Evaluation – page 13

9. Bibliography – page 14

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 © Nicolette Lunsingh Tonckens

Introduction

Investigating bouncing springs became of interest to me when we did a

preliminary experiment in class with pendulums. We changed the mass of the
pendulum whilst keeping the length of string the same and found that mass did not

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

affect the time period of oscillation. After carrying out that experiment I was
interested whether the same could be applied to oscillations involving springs. I
predicted that mass would affect the time period of a bouncing spring because of
Hooke’s Law.

This is where F is force, -k is the restoring spring constant and x is extension. Now
using the formula for force:

Increasing m should increase F because acceleration due to gravity is constant.

Therefore, with F increasing, x should increase as well because -k is a constant too.
As x increases, I predicted that the time period will increase too because the mass
travels a greater distance before it returns to the centre of acceleration where
displacement is equal to zero. Moreover, Newton II states that as mass is doubled,
acceleration is halved which means that speed will decrease and that time period
should increase.

Research question: How does mass affect time period of oscillation?

Independent variable: Mass

Dependent variable: Time period

Control variables: spring (constant), acceleration due to gravity, equipment and

position of equipment, extension from rest (10cm)

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Method

Equipment:

1. Slotted masses (10x 0.1kg masses)

2. 3x identical springs

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3. String
4. Clamp, clamp stand, G-clamp
5. Metre ruler
6. Scissors
7. Stopwatch
8. Set square
9. Digital weighing scale

Procedure:

1. Set up the equipment as shown

2. Before starting, measure the uncertainties of the masses by weighing all 10
0.1kg masses on a digital scale and recording their masses. Then, find the
difference between the weighed value and 0.1kg. After doing that for all the
10 masses, find an average uncertainty by adding all the uncertainties and
dividing it by 10
3. Assume the uncertainty for time is 0.04s (±0.01 due to the stopwatch and
±0.03 for human reaction time)
4. Ensure the ruler is not slanted using the set square so that the ruler forms a
right-angle to the ground
5. Slot the first mass (0.1kg) and let it hang freely until it does not move
6. Extend the spring by 10cm from rest and let it oscillate 10 times
7. Make sure to be at eye-level from the fiducial mark (for example, if the mass
hangs freely at 15cm, the spring should be extended to 25cm and 1
oscillation occurs every time the mass passes the 15cm mark, in this case the
15cm mark is the fiducial mark)

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8. Record the time for 10 oscillations 3 times per mass

9. Repeat steps 4-8 for all masses up to 1.0kg and change the spring if the
spring has stretched due to the oscillations of the heavier masses

Raw Data

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Time for 10 Time for 10 Time for 10
oscillations/s ± oscillations/s ± 0.04s oscillations/s ±
0.04s 0.04s
Mass/kg ± 0.03kg Trial1 Trial 2 Trial 3
0.1 3.79 3.91 3.84
0.2 5.09 5.22 5.26
0.3 6.76 6.44 6.86
0.4 7.29 7.29 7.26
0.5 8.24 8.30 8.29
0.6 9.04 9.01 8.89
0.7 9.63 9.56 9.50
0.8 10.06 10.06 10.16
0.9 10.73 10.67 10.65
1.0 11.09 11.02 11.06

Mass/kg ± Uncertainty Average time for Time for 1 Time

period,
0.03kg in m/kg 10 oscillations/s ± oscillation/s ± 0.04s
T/s ±
0.04s 0.04s
0.1 0.03 3.85 0.385 0.385
0.2 0.06 5.19 0.519 0.519
0.3 0.09 6.69 0.669 0.669
0.4 0.12 7.31 0.731 0.731
0.5 0.15 8.28 0.88 0.828
0.6 0.18 8.98 0.898 0.898
0.7 0.21 9.56 0.956 0.956

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0.8 0.24 10.09 1.009 1.009

0.9 0.27 10.68 1.068 1.068
1.0 0.30 11.06 1.106 1.106

The average time for 10 oscillations was found by adding the values of the

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three trials and then dividing them by three which gave the time period T for 10
oscillations. Then, that value was divided by 10 to find the time period for one
oscillation.

Example: (10 oscillations) and

(1 oscillation)

Processed Data

Mass, Uncertainty Time Uncertainty T²/s² Uncertainty Uncertainty in

m/kg ± in m/kg period, T/s, in T/% in T²/% T²/s²
0.03kg ΔT = ±
0.04s
0.1 0.03 0.385 10.390 0.148 20.779 0.031
0.2 0.06 0.519 7.707 0.269 15.414 0.041
0.3 0.09 0.669 5.979 0.448 11.958 0.054
0.4 0.12 0.731 5.472 0.534 10.944 0.058
0.5 0.15 0.828 4.831 0.686 9.662 0.066
0.6 0.18 0.898 4.454 0.806 8.909 0.072
0.7 0.21 0.956 4.184 0.914 8.368 0.076
0.8 0.24 1.009 3.964 1.02 7.929 0.081
0.9 0.27 1.068 3.745 1.14 7.491 0.085
1.0 0.30 1.106 3.617 1.22 7.233 0.088

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The average uncertainty of mass is ±0.03kg so for masses greater than

0.1kg, the uncertainty was added accordingly, hence the increase in the mass
uncertainties as mass increases. The uncertainty of time is ±0.04s (human
reaction error) so the percentage uncertainty for each time period was found by
dividing the uncertainty of the stopwatch by the actual value of the time period

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and multiplying it by 100.

Example:

If I were to plot a graph without squaring the time period, I would not be able
to find the gradient easily, hence why I had to linearise the graph by squaring the
values for all time periods to give a linear graph instead of an exponential graph.
This would allow the gradient to be found easily. The uncertainty in T² was then
found by doubling the original uncertainty of T. The uncertainty in T² cannot be
plotted as a percentage for the error bars so I had to multiply the percentage
uncertainty of T² by the T² value and then divide it by 100.

Example:

When plotting the error bars, each horizontal error bar was plotted individually
because each uncertainty for T² is different. Each error bar was plotted by adding
the uncertainty for T² to the value of T² for both ends of the error bars. To plot the
maximum and minimum slopes, I had to find the two values for x and y. The first x
value was found by adding the T² with its uncertainty for 0.1kg and the second x
value was found by subtracting the T² uncertainty from the T² value for 1kg. The
same was done for the y values.

x/cm (min) y/kg (min) x/cm (max) y/kg (max)

0.148 0.13 0.148 0.01
1.14 0.63 1.14 1.17

Example:

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To find the gradients of the slopes, the Microsoft Excel ‘SLOPE’ formula was used.

Slope min/kg Slope best-fit/kg Slope max/kg

0.504 0.827 0.902

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Graphs

Mass vs. Time Period

1.4

y = 0.7736x2.1491
1.2

0.8
Mass/kg

Line of best-fit
0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
Time for 1 oscillation/s

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Mass vs. Time Period²

1.4

y = 0.777x
y = 1.1089x - 0.0941
1.2

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

y = 0.504x + 0.0554
1

0.8
Mass/kg

Min
Max
0.6
Line of best-fit

0.4

0.2

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4
Time period²/s²

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The maximum and minimum slopes excluded the last data point because the lines
would not have fit through most the error bars, hence why the slopes were only
drawn up until the second last data point.

Analysis

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On the first graph, the graph increases a little bit more each and every time;
as mass increases, time period increases at an increasing rate. This is evident
because at 0.1kg, T is 0.385s and at 1.0kg, T is 1.106s. On the second graph, is
directly proportional to m. Both graphs show a strong positive relationship between T
and m.

The gradients of all the slopes on the second graph were found on Microsoft
Excel by using the ‘SLOPE’ formula. The gradient for the minimum slope is
0.504kg , the gradient for the maximum slope is 0.827kg and the gradient for
the best-fit slope is 0.902kg

I have found that:

Another way of calculating T is by using this formula:

Which is derived from:

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FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

When rearranged:

Which is in the form

Because it is in that form, the gradient of the best fit line (it passes through 0,0) is equal
to

which allows me to find the spring constant.

Gradient = 0.827=

kg

However, there still remain some uncertainties. This uncertainty value can be
calculated by using the maximum and minimum slopes.

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Min. gradient = Max. gradient =

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Therefore, the spring constant k =

Whilst keeping in mind the uncertainties, I tested whether my recordings for the time
periods were correct using

I picked one mass to investigate. For mass 0.1kg ± 0.03kg, from the raw data table I
recorded a time period of 0.385s ± 0.04s. Now that I have the spring constant, I can
check whether this is correct.

The theoretical time period for 0.1kg is 0.348s which shows that there is a deviation
of 0.037s between the theoretical value and the experimental value. I can now
calculate the degree of error by using the formula:

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The error is quite large but this can be explained by the ignored uncertainties of mass
and time period. It is still acceptable as the experimental value is only 0.037s away from
the theoretical value, such a difference can easily be explained by human error and the
stopwatch itself also had an uncertainty. This value is smaller than the recorded value
and would affect the results by causing a decrease in time. On the graph, the point

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would therefore lie more towards the left side instead of the right side.

Conclusion

The aim of my investigation was to find out how mass affects time period. I
predicted that as mass increases, so would time period and it is evident from my
graphs that this is correct. At 0.1kg, the time period I measured was 0.385s and at
1.0kg the time period was 1.106s. The fact that was also correct because my
second graph shows that is directly proportional to m after linearising the first
graph. Using the gradient of the second graph, k was found to be
which helped me to determine another way of finding T.

Evaluation

To reduce parallax (random) error, I was always eye-level with the fudicial
mark to ensure I recorded the time period for 10 oscillations correctly. Masses
greater than 0.2kg were not much of a problem but using the first mass, 0.1kg, was
hard because it was oscillating at a great speed. Therefore, I took 6 trials for that
mass and chose the best 3 trials with values closest to each other to put in the data
table. For random errors, if any, that would be the cause of extra uncertainties in the
time period. The uncertainties of the masses were determined and taken into
consideration, if there were any systematic errors they were not accounted for and
assumed negligible because there was no method of finding out their uncertainties.
The spring constant for the three springs were also assumed to be the same. The
springs were collected from the same packaging and it stated that they were made
from the same material. When using masses larger than 0.8kg, the system could
have moved as a whole which would add further random errors. All these errors and

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uncertainties combined could perhaps be the explanation of the 10.63% error

calculated in the analysis.

If I were to repeat this experiment, I would use a motion-sensor to place below

the oscillating spring. This would have reduced human reaction-time errors.

FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.

Bibliography

1. Fullick, Patrick. Physics. Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers, 1994.

Print.
2. Kirk, Tim. Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print.
3. David Homer and Michael Bowen-James. Physics. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014. Print.
4. Boundless. Period of a Mass on a Spring. N.P., 2016. Retrieved from:
https://www.boundless.com/physics/textbooks/boundless-physics-
textbook/waves-and-vibrations-15/periodic-motion-123/period-of-a-mass-on-
a-spring-428-11166/
5. The Physics Classroom. Motion of Mass on a Spring. N.P., 2016. Retrieved
from: http://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/waves/Lesson-0/Motion-of-a-
Mass-on-a-Spring
6. Practical Physics. Investigating a Mass-on-Spring Oscillator. N.P., 2016.
Retrieved from: http://practicalphysics.org/investigating-mass-spring-
oscillator.html

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