INFLUENCE OF PHOTOELECTRIC GATE TIMING MODE ON MEASUREMENT OF GRAVITATIONAL ACCELERATION BY FALLING BALL METHOD

In university physics experiments, the falling ball method is commonly used to measure the acceleration due to gravity. It is widely believed that the residual magnetism of electromagnets and air resistance are the main factors affecting the measurement using this method, while the impact of the photoelectric gate timing method has always been overlooked. This paper studies the influence of the photoelectric gate timing method on two ways of measuring the acceleration due to gravity using the falling ball method. The study shows that the photoelectric gate timing method has a significant impact on method one, increasing the height from which the ball falls will slightly reduce the measurement error, but the percentage error is still greater than 6%. The photoelectric gate timing method has a smaller impact on method two; when the position of the above photoelectric gate is more than 3.00cm away from the position where the ball falls, the percentage error is less than 0.17% , and the impact of the photoelectric gate timing method can be neglected.