Coupled Point Masses on a Circle

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0.1

m

0.1

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1.27

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2.84

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4.41

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4

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5.98

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(0)

0.

′

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0.

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0.

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0.

view

circle

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This Demonstration solves a system of four point masses connected with springs constrained to lie on a circular ring. Qualitatively, you can observe uniform rotation and in-phase and out-of-phase vibration, but the crossings and overlappings in the solutions are unphysical and not mentioned in textbooks.