Animated Pendulum

initial conditions

length (m)

2

maximum angle (degrees)

45

mass (kg)

2.5

gravity m/

2

s



9.8

animate

Use the trigger to animate the pendulum. Change the gravity, pendulum length, maximum angle, and mass to see how they affect motion, period, and energy.

Note that changing the initial conditions after the trigger has been hit will change the entire history of the pendulum's evolution.

Details

In this Demonstration, all units are in MKS. The numerical solution is accurate and does not use the approximation of replacing

sin(θ)

by

θ

, which is only valid for small angles. Varying the mass changes the area of a disk with a physical density. Kinetic energy is not calculated directly, but from the principle of conservation of energy.

External Links

Pendulum (ScienceWorld)

Permanent Citation

Joel Frederico, Rob Morris, Fernand Brunschwig

"Animated Pendulum"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/AnimatedPendulum/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: April 27, 2007