Experiments in mechanics often require measurements of time intervals of the order of tenths or hundredths of a second, not easily performed with hand-held stopwatches. In this paper we present a method for carrying out such measurements, using a personal computer equipped with sound card and microphone. The basic idea is simple: the time evolution of many mechanical systems can be traced by the sounds they produce, and in these cases an audio recording may provide accurate measurements of the time intervals of interest, even if they are very small. We illustrate this method with two experiments: in one we measure the speed of a hard-kicked soccer ball, and in the other we time the free fall of an object. The experiments were successfully implemented in high-schools and we present some of the results obtained by the students.
physics education; timer; sound card
