Lab Activity #1

Ay20

Fall 2011

1. The rst segment of this lab activity involved measuring the radius of the Earth. Yes, the true value can be looked up with a simple Google search. But this would be neither fun nor challenging. Well need the Earths radius in order to measure the astronomical unit and other important astrophysical quantities later in the term. I contend that an enterprising Caltech student can measure the Earths radius with nothing but a stopwatch and a view of a sunset over the ocean (as viewed from sea-level at the beach). Find a group that includes at least one person with a car and a drivers license. Describe your methodology using several paragraphs written in the voice of a professional scientist. Use gures as needed. Note that this information is online. Plesae use the honor code (and your pride) and devise your own methodology. After carefully designing your experiment, drive to the beach and gather your data. Make as many measurements as possible and report the data in a table, along with the mean radius and the standard deviation of the mean. Compare your mean radius measurement R and uncertainty R to the ocial radius of the Earth (cite your source). Describe the comparison in the writeup (is it good, poor?). If the agreement is less than satisfactory, describe possible sources of systematic error. 2. Given your value of R , what is the mass of the Earth? Describe how you measure M using your own empirical data, as opposed to information recorded elsewhere. Compare your mass measurement to the ocial value. Describe the comparison in the writeup (is it good, poor?). If the agreement is less than satisfactory, describe possible sources of systematic error.