oscillation

Last week we started learning about what happens when oscillations lose energy and slow to a stop. We call this damping. This week we’ll focuses specifically on the mechanical energy in these damped oscillations. It’s probably obvious, but in oscillating systems we’re dealing with mechanical energy. In the real world, …

We’ve learned a lot about simple harmonic motion over the past several weeks. We’ve learned how to find the velocity, acceleration, and displacement of an object in SHM. Now we need to integrate energy into our understanding. Let’s think about our object oscillating at the end of a spring. The …

Last week I said that this week I would write about the period and amplitude in simple harmonic motion. Well, I changed my mind. We’re doing displacement, velocity, and acceleration in simple harmonic motion, instead. (What? I don’t see you writing a weekly post about physics.) Anyway, let’s begin. We’ve …

Hello, my fellow physics fanatics! Because of Thanksgiving break I nearly forgot about this post. But never fear! I shall not abandon you! It is a bit of sad week, however, as last week was the final lesson on gravity. (You may have noticed that we did not cover the …