PHYSIC 181 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Small-Angle Approximation, Radian, Observational Error
6 Jan 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The pendulum has been studied for centuries at all levels of physics. How a pendulum is investigated can grant insights into many different aspects in both theoretical and experimental science. We will be looking at a simple pendulum, a metal sphere, called a bob, hanging from a long, thin string attached to the ceiling. If we study its small angle oscillations, we can experimentally discover the acceleration due to gravity as 980. 35 cm/s2. If we suspend a stone at the end of a piece of string, we have a simple pendulum. Pendulums swing to and fro with such regularity that they have long been sued to control the motion of clocks. Galileo discovered that the time of a pendulum takes to swing to and fro through small distances depends only on the length of the pendulum and the acceleration of gravity. The time of to and fro swing, called the period, does not depend on the mass.
