Thursday, September 11, 2008

The Science of a Kiss: Conservation of Mass and Energy

The reasoning for this experiment was for our class to learn about the conservation of energy. When the kiss was moving it had kinetic energy, and when the movement was stopped when the kiss hit the table it resulted in gravitational energy. We took the mass of the Hershey's Kiss which was .0022kg and we dropped it from the height of
.1 meter, .5 meter, and 1 meter. We recorded the data and calculated the gravitational potential energy. The equation we used was 2KE/m = v^2. We also found the final velocity just before the kiss hit the table by using the equation
Vf = 2(9.8 m/s^2)X .53m which = about 9.8 m/s^2. This experiment helped me to start understanding how kinetic and gravitational energy work. I was able to see how and why the numbers we used worked in the equation. I know have a better understanding about the terms kinetic energy, gravitational energy, and velocity.