Laws of conservation

The law of conservation of energy is a law in physics which states that energy
cannot be destroyed nor created but changes from one form to another or
transferred from one object to another. Examples of these conservations of energy
can be seen in everyday life. Consider throwing a ball at a stationary glass cup. The
ball has potential energy which turns into kinetic energy when thrown, when the ball
hits the stationary cup, the energy transfers from the ball to the cup causing it to
fall over or even break. The ball losses energy as it has been transferred to the cup
so the ball falls to the ground.
The laws of conservation of energy are among the most studied and practical
laws of physics. These laws help in finding the solution of many mechanical
problems. When work is done by an external force on an object there will be a
change in the total mechanical energy of the object but if the forces doing work on
an object are internal(conservative) then there will be no change in the total
mechanical energy. When this is the case we can say that the total mechanical
energy of the object is conserved.
When an object is acted on by only conservative forces the mechanical
energy may be transferred between kinetic and potential energy but the total
mechanical energy which is the sum of kinetic and potential energy will remain a
conserved quantity.
Mechanical energy conservation in this investigation
In this investigation I will consider the mechanical conservation of energy
in a pendulum. The conservation of energy in the pendulum will be confirmed, this
I knew before my experiment as I did some research prior to my investigation and
this topic was covered in class. The potential energy (the energy an object has due
to its position in a force field) and kinetic energy (energy in motion) of the pendulum
will also be determined to test my hypothesis that the sum of mechanical energy is
conserved for a system that includes only conservative forces. This will be done
because the sum of the potential and kinetic energy equals the total energy.

KE=1/2 mv

Kinetic energy:
Potential energy:
Total Energy:
Pendulums

PE=mgy

E=1 /2 mv 2+ mgy

The motion of a pendulum is a typically used example when investigating

mechanical energy conversion. A pendulum is made of 2 parts a mass which is
attached by a string to a pivot point. As the pendulum moves it goes in a circular
arc. In this investigation I will be neglecting air resistance as force acting on the
pendulum because it has too small an effect on the pendulum which means that I
will only be assessing 2 forces acting on the pendulum namely: gravity and tension.
Gravity is a conservative force so it does not affect the total mechanical energy and
tension is external force but the force of tension will not play a role in this
investigation as tension always acts in a direction which is perpendicular to the
mass. In all points in the arc of the mass, the angle between motion and tension is
always equal to 90 degrees so tension does not affect the investigation. Seeing as
no external force acts upon the pendulum, the total mechanical energy should
always be conserved.
Experimental Design
The purpose of this investigation is to calculate the potential and
kinetic energy of a swinging pendulum and thereby calculating the total
mechanical energy conservation of a swinging pendulum. I will limit my
investigation to 1 pendulum and I will limit the study to one initial drop height and
the resulting data collected.
Using a webcam and VideoPoint Capture program, the swing of the pendulum
was recorded. Kinetic, potential and total energies were generated by spreadsheet. I
will be using the Energy per unit mass since I have not measured the mass of the
pendulum and because I dont need to. I will compute the potential energy per unit
mass relative to the low point in the pendulum swing; I will be calling this
equilibrium height

y0 .