Oscillations
Anything that swings or bounces or vibrates in a regular motion is said to oscillate. For example a pendulum, a child on a swing, or a spring bouncing up and down.
- simple harmonic motion
- quantitative treatment using a = –ω²x and its solution x = A cos ωt
The link between an oscillating system undergoing simple harmonic motion and a sinusoidal wave is quite an easy one for students to understand, but the mathematics can be quite complicated for them.
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London Millennium Bridge opening
This 5 minute YouTube video discusses the issues faced by the London Millenium bridge and other bridges due to lateral vibrations.
The Tacoma Narrows Fallacy
A quick YouTube video discussing the difference between resonance and aero-elastic flutter. Great for a discussion topic.
Episode 300: Preparation for Simple Harmonic Motion Topic
The prior knowledge detailed in this resource is useful. Students will struggle unless they are comfortable with the relationship between sine and cosine.
Episode 301: Recognising Simple Harmonic Motion
Students need to have a good understanding of the the features of simple harmonic motion before dealing with the mathematical relationships. This resource provides many example demonstrations. The one that the students find easiest to understand is the trolley between two springs as the magnitude of restoring force can be linked to the length of the spring. It is harder to see in a swinging pendulum.
Episode 302: Simple Harmonic Motion Getting Mathematical
This is a hard topic mathematically, and this resource has a number of ideas to help students get to grips with the formula and relationship between x, v and a.
Oscillations simulation using Geogebra
This simulation of an rotating system of vectors shows the relationship between x, v, and a in an oscilliating system. This can help students visualise the relationship and show how the equations used are linked.
Episode 303: Mass-Spring Systems
The oscillating mass and spring is a simpler system to understand than the pendulum. Students can link Hooke's law to allow them to calculate the magnitude of the restoring force in the system.
This resource has a number of questions for students to do as well as practical ideas.
Mass Spring System simulation using Geogebra
GeoGebra provides an interactive resource to illustrate simple harmonic motion with mass on a Spring.
Pendulum Lab
This is a very easy to use simulation of a pendulum system, with a number of controls that can be altered, including friction in the system. It displays energy changes that occur during the pendulum swing and also shows how the period of the pendulum should be calculated. It's a good idea to show this before students perform a physical experiment.
Episode 304: Simple Pendulum
This resource contains a good selection of investigations for students to do to allow them to measure oscillating pendulum systems. These experiments are good for getting students to think about timing in experiments. There are a range of measurement techniques from stopwatch to data loggers.
Pendulum Waves
This quick two minute video demonstrates fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual travelling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion.