October 12, 2010 Lasers and Reflections (Period 1)

Today we started with more trials of our experiment of seeing if lasers reflect off of the mirror at the same angle as they were shot. We needed to make a prediction on what would happen when the laser was shot through the protractor onto to the mirror and see where it reflected. Hleb, Thomas, and I came up with the prediction that the laser should reflect off of the mirror at the same angle as the laser was shot. After doing 8 trials with the mirror and protactor we determined that when the laser is shot through the protractor it reflected off the mirror at the same angle that they were shot at. When shot at 10 degrees, the laser was reflected at 10 degrees. When the laser was shot at 20 degrees. it reflected at 20 degrees and so on. These experiments lead to the confirmation of our hypothesis that lasers reflect off of a mirror at the same angle as they were shot.

(A picture of what I saw when I shot the laser through the protractor onto the mirror)



Later, Finley talked to us about a couple of things on our lab reports. Remember that there are no claculations necessary for today's lab. Then we talked about uncertainty, which is one half of the smallest increment, something else to think about for taday's lab report.

We walked out of class today with a proven hypothesis of lasers reflect off of a mirror at the same angle as they are shot and some things to consider for our lab reports tonight with uncertainty and no calculations.

KS