Question

What could be some possible errors in the "elasiticy of materials" experiement? We worked with copper and added mass to the hanger 20 g at a time

Answer 1

Adding weights to a given material for determining its elasticity utilizes the knowledge of the surface area of the material, mass of the weights, length of the material and measurement of the change in length of the material.

For Young's Modulus,

where F = mg, L = length of copper wire, A = surface area of the copper wire and l = change in length after adding the weights.

The possible errors can be from the least counts of the length measurement scales (a ruler for measuring L will have a least count of 0.1 cm). For measuring surface area, the diameter of the wire will be determined using vernier calliper/screw gauge whose least count must be accounted in the error scheme. The least count of the weighing scales will also contribute to the error.