Testing discrepancies in the measurement of the acceleration of gravity in a physical pendulum experiment

Abstract After analysing results on the measurement of the acceleration of gravity using a physical pendulum in our teaching laboratory, we found that the value reported by the students is always higher than the theoretical expectations. In this article we analyze critically some of the students hypotheses for such displacement, and we perform an investigation of our own to detect what is leading to this result. We disregarded any flaw on the experimental procedure performed by the students, and instead, concluded that the miscalibration of the laboratory instruments was distorting the students measurements, leading to a ~ 5 % increase in the calculated value of the acceleration of gravity.