Pendulum experiment

Oliver
2 min readFeb 13, 2022

Goal 1: build a pendulum that has a period of oscillation of 0.5s

Goal 2: find the relationship between the length and period of a pendulum

Pendulum types:

Simple pendulum — a ball on a string(light string):

  • The ball is the mass
  • Displace the ball to move
  • All mass concentrated at one point
  • The size of the mass is smaller compared to the length of the string
  • The string should be massless
  • An idealization
  • No perfect simple pendulum

Physical pendulum — a beam with a pivot:

  • The beam is the mass
  • Displace the beam to move
  • Mass distribution could be arbitrary

What makes a pendulum move?

  • As long as the pivot is not directly on top of the center of mass

Periodic — Something that repeats itself

Equilibrium — at 0

Force — an influence that can change the motion of an object

Newton’s law of motion:

  • The object will stay in constant velocity (speed and direction) if the forces applied to its are balanced (no net force)
  • Force = mass * acceleration(change in velocity / change in time)
  • Every force has an equal (magnitude) and opposite reaction force

Pendulum formula:

  • T=2pi(sprt(L/g))
  • T — period
  • L — pendulum length
  • g — acceleration due to gravity
  • g=-(GM)/r²*r^
  • G — gravitational constant (6.674 30 x 10–11 m3 kg-1 s-2)
  • M — mass of the field source
  • r — distance between two point-like masses
  • r^ — unit vector directed from the field source to the smaller sample mass

Experiment:

  • Build either a simple or physical pendulum
  • Oscillate twice in 1 second
  • a strand of string
  • a ruler
  • a protractor
  • a watch for time keeping
  • laptop / paper to keep track of data

My data and results

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-c6LEF470KhSw1qceDw67NQChSR-28anAVnzO6uoR7A/edit?usp=sharing

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