Essay On Simple Harmonic Motion

Simple Harmonic Motion The world contains many laws of motion which help govern the world as we know it. Although most people are blind to these important laws, they impact almost every aspect of our lives. One of the most evident types of motion is periodic motion, or more specifically, simple harmonic motion. According to Britannica, simple harmonic motion is a “repetitive movement back and forth through an equilibrium, or central, position, so that the maximum displacement on one side of this position is equal to the maximum displacement on the other side” (The). Some examples of this interesting type of motion include a swing on the play set, the vibrating strings of a guitar, and the springs on a vehicle. As we looked deeper into this concept, my group completed two different experiments to

A pendulum is a weight hung from a fixed point so that it can swing freely backward and forward. There are many examples of pendulums that we see everyday including a child swinging on a swing and the pendulum on a grandfather clock. The first item we changed in our second experiment was the amplitude. To adjust the amplitude of a pendulum we changed the angle of swing. While doing this, we made sure to keep the period, frequency, length, and mass constant. After changing the amplitude to three different angles, my group observed that as we increased the amplitude, the period increased and the frequency decreased. This shows that the period and frequency are inversely related to each other. The next unit we changed was the mass. While keeping the amplitude constant this round, my group changed the mass three times. We discovered that as one increases the mass, the period increases while the frequency decreases. This result is the opposite of Experiment One. When changing the mass on springs, we found that the period decreases and the frequency