Main Project Information Introduction Initial Observations & Hypothesis Materials & Equipment

Experiments Discussion Application Conclusion

Introduction

During the 10th century, the Arabian astronomer, Ibn Yunus discovered the pendulum and he was the first to study and document its oscillatory motion. Physicists first introduced its use for clocks during the 17th century, following observations from Galileo.

A simple gravity pendulum is a rigid rod (or a string/rope) with a weight on the end of it, which, when given an initial push, will swing back and forth under the influence of gravity over its central (lowest) point.

Fig 1. Simple Pendulum

One can see from Fig. 1 the oscillation of pendulum is determined by three quantities:

· length of the rope (l )

· maximum angle of oscillation ( q )

· mass of the weight (m )

The oscillations are described by period and frequency.

Period is a time interval within which the pendulum makes one cycle.

Frequency is the number of cycles within a unit time interval.

Period is the reciprocal of frequency.

In this project I studied the dependences between different parameters of oscillations and compared them with the theoretical formula.

Main Project Information Introduction Initial Observations & Hypothesis Materials & Equipment

Experiments Discussion Application Conclusion