Analysis

Physics as we know is the study of matter, energy and the interaction between
them and that it is a branch of science that is concerned with their nature and
properties (matter and energy). One topic in Physics is about Physical quantities,
either Scalar quantities or Vector quantity. Scalar quantities only is composed of
magnitude such as mass, distance, time, etc. while Vector quantities consist of
magnitude and direction like velocity. In vector, the most common quantity is
force. Defining force, it is a push or pull an object that results from the interaction
with another object. If there is an interaction between two objects, therefore we can
say that there is force upon each objects. When the interaction between the objects
stops, they no longer experience force. Forces only exist as a result of interaction.
For example when you roll a ball on the ground and hits the wall, a force on the
ball from the wall causes the ball to stop rolling.
Force is a quantity that is measured using the standard metric unit known as the
Newton. A Newton is abbreviated by an "N." To say "10.0 N" means 10.0 Newton
of force. One Newton is the amount of force required to give a 1-kg mass an
acceleration of 1 m/s/s. Thus, the following unit equivalency can be stated:
1 Newton = 1 kg m/s2
As stated above, force is a vector quantity and a vector has a magnitude and
direction. Thus, saying 10 Newton is not a full description of force acting upon an
object. In contrast, 10 Newton, upward is a complete description of force since it
has a magnitude (10 Newton) and direction (upward).
A single vector can be broken down into two components, its horizontal and
vertical vectors. In finding the amount of influence of a single vector in a specific
direction involves the use of the trigonometric functions, and that is through the

use of component method. In finding the vertical component of a vector, cosine

function is used while in finding the horizontal component, sine function is used.
After that, Pythagorean Theorem is used in order to come up with the direction and
magnitude of the resultant. There is another way in finding the resultant of the
vectors, it is by using the parallelogram method, a graphical representation of
vectors. The resultant can be obtained by summing up all the vectors.

In the performed experiment, concurrent forces act on a ring pulled by 4 strings

with loads attached to its ends. The main objective of this experiment is to
determine the resultant force of converging force using the Graphical Method and
Analytical Method. The materials that we used in this experiments are 1pc of force
table, 4pcs super pulley with clamp, 4pcs mass hanger, 1 set slotted mass and 1 pc
of protractor (The set of pictures of these materials are posted below). We are
notified that we should take extra care in using these instruments especially of the
force table and the pulleys or else we should be fined by a large amount. The goal
is to find the equilibrant, in order to know what the resultant of the given vectors
and this is done in a two dimensional plane. We used two different methods to get
the resultant in this experiment, Polygon Method and the Component Method and
after that we calculated for the Percentage Error for both method.
Further elaborating the Polygon Method, it is one of the Graphical Method and
the other ones are Parallelogram Method and Triangle Method. In polygon method,
you first scale the given quantities and then graph them one by one. After graphing
the vectors, draw a line from the origin to the head of the final vector and then
measure the resultant and lastly scale it.

Force Table, Supper Pulley, Mass Hanger

Protractor

Slotted Mass

The other method that we used is the Component Method. It is the most reliable
source of getting the answer or the resultant vector. In this method, you should all
first take the summation of the vectors along the x axis (x) and the summation of
the vectors along the y axis (y) and then using this formula in getting the
resultant vector.

R= ( x ) + ( x )
2

After getting the resultant, then get the angle between the two summations. It can
be determined by using this formula:

=tan 1

( xy )

In finding the summation of the vectors along the x axis, cosine function is used
for example: Acos ( ) ; where A is the magnitude of the vector and is the angle
of the vector. On the other hand, in finding the summation of the vectors along the
y axis, sine function should be used. For example: Asin ( ) ; where A is the
magnitude of the vector and is the angle of the vector.

Conclusion

Force can be defined in many terms depending on the topic and in general,
force is an interaction between two objects. If there is no interaction, there would
be no force. It is a vector quantity, therefore it has magnitude and direction.
Classifying a vector quantity from a scalar quantity, always remember that a vector
quantity has a direction while scalar quantity has not since it has only magnitude.
Resultant is the sum of the vector quantity and the vector that balances the
resultant is the equilibrium. The resultant is equal in magnitude with the resultant
but oppositely directed. This is why it would be much easier to determine the
equilibrant if you have determined the resultant. In finding the resultant, many
ways can be used such as polygon method, experimentation, and the component
method. In using polygon method, measure the angle first and plot the vector
(putting an arrow at the end) and always remember to draw it precisely and use a
scale. In component method, cosine and sine functions are used for the summation
of the vectors along the x axis and the y axis and using the Pythagorean Theorem
after. For calculating the degree of the resultant vector, use the formula arcsin
(

y
)
x .

In this experiment, we also calculated the percentage error for the both polygon
method and the component method. Assuming the results from the experiment has
the true value, we use the values from the polygon method and the component
method to be the experimental value and the one that yielded the less percentage

error is from the Component Method and therefore I conclude that in finding the
resultant, you can use the component method for the more reliable answer.