Skip to main content

AMAZING FACTS OF PENDULUM

 








1 .     Mathematics of the pendulum is complicated.

2 .      Frequency of oscillation of a pendulum depends only on its length.

3 .     Time period or frequency does not depend on mass or material of the bob.

4 .      Pendulum’s energy alternates between potential and kinetic and hence it oscillates
.
5 .      Potential energy and kinetic energy have opposite relationship and the total energy is conserved.

6 .       Tension along the string (upwards) and weight of the bob (downwards) are only the two forces acting in the pendulum.

7 .       Mainly gravity is responsible for the pendulum’s swings.  Hence ‘g’ can be measured with a pendulum.

8 .      Pendulum always tries to reach equilibrium (center position).  But overshoots it due to inertia

9 .       Size of the swing does not affect time period or frequency of the pendulum.

10.    99 cm length pendulum takes 2 second for one oscillation.

11.   Pendulum’s oscillation produce sine wave graph, when the graph is drawn between time and displacement.


13.   Clocks were constructed using pendulum in the past.  Some famous pendulum clocks are still around.

14.   Small pendulums are used to ‘hypnotize’ the person?

15.   Pendulum is the first gateway to enter physics where there are so many vibratory. wavy motions exist.


16.   Air molecules vibrations that produce sound; Charges’ vibrations that produce electromagnetic waves; atoms vibrations in a solid that produce heat; all are micro scale oscillations like pendulum.   

Comments

  1. Very nice post, covered all the points regarding Pendulum.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE EARTH, A SUPER ORGANISM

     JOIN MY COURSE: "Become a programmer in a day with python"       A man called 'love lock' (what a name) proposed a theory called Gaia theory, named after Greek Goddess.      It says, "Earth is a self-regulating organism like a human being.  The organic life in it interacts with in-organic matter and maintains atmosphere, temperature and environment".  Hence the earth is still suitable for the life to thrive.      Imagine, in a particular place, there are lot of flowers.  Some flowers are white and some are darkly coloured.  We know, white reflects light and heat while dark absorbs the same.  White flowers can thrive in hot climate.  But dark flowers requires cold climate.  The absorption and reflection balances and the environment reaches average, warm temperature at which both the flowers can co-exist.  This is the essence of "Gaia" theory.      On our earth, the oxygen constitute 20% of the atmosphere.  The oxygen level is always mai

THE PARABOLA

          A jet of water shooting from a hose pipe will follow a parabolic path.  What is the so special about parabola.    Y= x^2 Draw a graph for the above equation.  It will result in a parabola.  This parabola is also called unit parabola.  Any equation involving square will yield a parabola. Example:  Y = 2x^2 +3x+3 (also called quadratic equation)    X= 2 and -2, both  satisfies the equation 4 = X^2.  Parabolic equations always have two solutions.     Any motion taking place freely under gravity follows parabolic path. Examples:   An object dropped from a moving train,   A bomb dropped from flying plane,  A ball kicked upwards.      If a beam of light rays fall on the parabolic shaped mirror, they will be reflected and brought to focus on a point.  This fact is made use of in Dish Antenna, Telescope mirrors, etc.      Inverted parabola shape is used in the construction of buildings and bridges.  Because the shape is able to bear more weight.      A plane

DISORDER IS THE "ORDER OF THE DAY"

         Imagine a balloon full of air.  The air molecules are moving randomly inside the balloon.  Let us pierce the balloon with a pin.  The air rushes out.  Why should not the air molecules stay inside the balloon safely and ignore the little hole?  That is not the way the world works.  The molecules always "want to occupy as many states as possible".  Hence the air goes out in the open to occupy more volume.   The things always goes into disorder (entropy) and the disorder increases with time.  The above statement is what we call "second law of thermodynamics".      Consider a cup of coffee on the table. Suppose the heat from entire room flows to your cup of coffee, the coffee will boil and the rest of the room will freeze.  Freezing means bringing things to order and arrangement.  It violates the second law.  Hence it will never happen.  Hence heat must flow from high temperature to low temperature and not the other way.        The air molecules in y