Wired breaks down the difficulties of modeling a pendulum’s swing.
A basic pendulum IS a mass at the end of a string that swings back and forth. It seems simple, and it appears in most introductory physics textbooks. But it’s not a trivial problem to solve for the motion of this mass on a string.
Traditionally, the introductory view of the pendulum is to show that for small amplitudes the motion of the mass is like a simple harmonic motion (motion of a mass on a spring) with a period of oscillation that depends on the length of the string and the local gravitational field.
Each Tuesday is EducationTuesday here at Adafruit! Be sure to check out our posts about educators and all things STEM. Adafruit supports our educators and loves to spread the good word about educational STEM innovations!
No comments:
Post a Comment