Physics lab report 1

Measure the speed of light using chocolate

Write 1 half to 2 pages lab report and strictly follow the example format! thanks

How to:

1. Take the turntable out of the microwave. You need the chocolate to stay still whilst you heat it.
2. Put a plate upside down over the thing that rotates the turntable (does that have a name? For now I'm going with 'rotator').
3. Put your chocolate in the middle of the plate.
4. Heat the chocolate until it starts to melt in two or three places. This should take about 20 seconds.
5. Take the chocolate out of the microwave - carefully! It will be hot. Measure the distance between the melted spots.
6. If your microwave is a standard model, it will have a frequency of 2.45 gigahertz (or check the microwave). 
7. Calculate the speed of light

What's happening?

Microwaves are a type of electromagnetic radiation, just like light waves. Microwaves also travel at the speed of light. If you measure how fast they are travelling, you should get a result close to the speed of light.

Wavelength

When you measure the distance between two melted spots you can work out the wavelength of the microwaves.

Measuring the distance between melted spots gave you half a wavelength. You need to multiply the distance by two to get a whole wavelength.

The distance between two melted spots is half a wavelength

Speed

Speed of light = wavelength x frequency

adopted from http://www.planet-science.com/categories/over-11s/physics-is-fun!/2012/01/measure-the-speed-of-light-using-chocolate.aspx (Links to an external site.)