Shear Modulus Determination Using the Smartphone in a Torsion Pendulum

Abstract

Implementing smartphones with their internal sensors into physics experiments represents a modern, attractive, and authentic approach to improve students’ conceptual understanding of physics. In such experiments, smartphones often serve as objects with physical properties and as digital measurement devices to record, display, and analyze quantities such as the angular velocity, linear acceleration, magnetic flux, sound pressures, light intensity, etc. For example, the MEMS accelerometer and gyroscope are utilized to study the dependence of the radial acceleration on the angular velocity in circular motions and oscillation periods or the acceleration due to gravity via different pendulum setups.