Experiment: Width of a Human Hair

The purpose of this experiment was tho measure the thickness of a a human hair.

Equipment:
-Laser pointer
-3x5 card with hole punched
-Human Hair
-Whiteboard

In this experiment we taped a human hair across the hole of a 3x5 card and clamped the card parallel to the wall several meter away from the whiteboard. We then mounted the laser so that it pointed perpendicularly toward the whiteboard through the hole in the card. We then turned on the laser and adjusted the card so that the beam went right through the hair. This then produced a diffraction pattern on the whiteboard. We then measured the distance between the minimas.

(The picture above shows the beam going through the hole in the card)

(This picture was the diffraction pattern on the white board that we analyzed)

Below is our data and data analysis: