The ticker timer is simply a piece of apparatus that we use to measure time. When you work out the speed of an object you need to know how far it goes in a certain time.
The ticker timer makes dots on a paper tape every fiftieth of a
second. So if a piece of tape is pulled through the timer for a second there will be 50 dots on
it.
Since the spaces between the dots take such a short time (1/50 s) the ticker timer
is a very useful instrument for measuring short intervals of time.
A piece of tape is
shown in the diagram. You can see that the faster the tape is pulled through the timer the
furthest apart the dots get. If the tape is pulled through at a steady speed the dots remain
the same distance apart.
We have to be very careful here; as there is 1/50 s
between dots we must count the number of SPACES and not the number of dots
themselves.
To work out the velocity of the tape all we need to do is to measure
the length of tape that goes through in the time given by the number of spaces.
