Lab 1: Relationship Between
Mass and Volume
Faith Eastwood
Natalia Sedykh
Phys. 122
Purpose
• What is the relationship between mass and
volume for a copper cylinder.
Theory
• There will be a direct linear relationship
between volume and mass. As Volume
increases mass will increase.
Materials and Procedures
• Materials: Balance scale, solid copper
cylinders, micrometer
• Procedures:
– Measure the mass using a balance scale.
– Measure the length and the diameter using the
micrometer
– Calculate the volume using the formula
(3.14r^2)(h)
– Repeat steps 1-3 with each cylinder
Uncertainty
• Uncertainty: To determine the uncertainty of our
measurement devices we took 10 readings with the
balance scale and 10 readings with the micrometer.
• Uncertainty for length:
Average 1.289 cm
Max 1.230 cm
Min 1.226 cm
•
Uncertainty .063 cm
Uncertainty for mass:
Average 29.29 g
Max 29.31 g
Min 29.25 g
Uncertainty .04 g
Data and Sample Calculation
Measured Data
Derived
Mass g +/.04
Height cm +/.063
Diameter cm +/- Volume
.063
Cm^3
23.90
1.228
1.268
1.550
29.21
2.600
1.266
3.271
57.53
5.100
1.290
6.662
Sample calculation for volume
V=Πr^2*h
V=3.14*.634cm^2*1.228cm
V= 1.550 cm^3
Graph
The relationship between mass and volume
y = 8.9739x
70
60
Mass, g
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
1
2
3
4
Volume, cm^3
5
6
7
Analysis
• From our graph we can tell that there is a positive
linear relationship between volume and mass. As the
volume of our cylinders increased the mass increased
as well.
• The equation for the line is y=8.97g/cm^3
• This means that for every increase in volume of 1 cm^3
the mass increased by 8.97 g.
• The units for our slope, g/cm^3) are also the units for
density. Meaning that the sample of copper that we
measured had a density of 8.97g/cm^3. When we
looked up the density of copper online we found
numbers between 9.84-9.92 g/cm^3.
Conclusion
• Our theory that we would see a positive linear
relationship between volume and mass. As you
can see in our graph we did find a linear
relationship between mass and volume.
• We predicted that if the volume doubled the
mass would also double. We saw that for our
second and third data points but not for our first.
We suspect that there was measurement error
with our first data point. Ideally we should have
taken more measurements, but there were not
any more copper samples available.