Coefficient of Friction Testing

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Ether

I don't see the point you are trying to make, in the context in which you originally posted.

You'd have to do that anyway, if you were measuring the angle between the ramp and the floor.

In my original post my point is that unless you measure actual rise (movement parallel to the force of gravity) and actual run (movement perpendicular to the force of gravity) the angle you calculate will be inaccurate by however off the reference surface is.

Furthermore, one has to measure either the angle of the reference surface (the surface that the carpenter's square is placed on) and then measure rise/run, or just measure the slope directly. The former contains three sources of error, the latter has only one source of error. I would prefer to measure just one thing, the angle of inclination, instead of the angle of a reference surface and two distances.

Determining if these errors are significant is the responsibility of the experimenter.