Tag Archives: pendulum

Time Limit

Well, apparently 15 minutes is not enough to complete the practical exam of measuring the acceleration caused by gravity by measuring the period of a pendulum.

Reasons:
– I forgot (read: didn’t think) to bring my calculator. Not that I have one anyway. The reason: I think the calculations are not going to be insane. I WAS WRONG. g = \dfrac{4\pi^2 l}{T^2} is hard to compute. Especially since I’m also asked to compute the frequency f = \dfrac{1}{T} although I very well won’t need it. (Eventually I changed so I compute g = (2\pi f)^2 l.)
– The stopwatch worked only 50% of the time. Imagine working alone, fixating your view to the swinging pendulum, just to find out that the stopwatch didn’t start. 30 seconds wasted.
– Delicate handwork. I took like 3 minutes to tie the nylon string that is weighed to the pivot. Double that, as I need to do the experiment twice with different nylon lengths.
– Stupid misguiding. When you’re told “10 minutes”, you think that there is 10 minutes left. Not too long after that (about 3 minutes), while I was still doing the experiment accurately (but hence slowly), I was told “1.5 minutes left”. Imagine my immediate panic.

Must play more time management games, not rhythm games.