4

The Forced Bubble

An entrepreneur submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry a proposal for collaboration
with academia in the prediction of racehorse winners. Enthusing on the value of such a project, the
Departmentfinancedthree years of research, whereby the entrepreneur provided field data, which
was subsequently analysed by the Statistics group of a mathematics department at a certain
university. At the end of three years, the university submitted a written report to the entrepreneur
and the DTI which they stated was '100% certain*. Passing rapidly over the pages of formulae, the
entrepreneur read the one-line conclusion at the end: "One horse always wins." Somewhat
dismayed, but still feeling the project had worth, the entrepreneur approached the Science and
Engineering Research Council. They suggested that, since the problem of a fast racehorse might
reduce to the drag factor of the horse, the circulation of the blood etc., for a more practical input
the entrepreneur should collaborate with the Fluid Dynamics group at the university. The project
went ahead along these lines, and at the end of three years the entrepreneur turned up to take
possession of the report, which he would personally pass on to the SERC. "Is it 100% certain to
predict the result?" he asked, as the researchers handed over the thick bound copy. "No, no," they
replied, "This is a practical science, and nothing is ever certain. But we have 95% confidence in
the winner that the theory predicts for any given race." The entrepreneur beamed. "That's good enough
for me!" he smiled, and opening the report, read the first line: Assume a spherically-symmetric horse...

4.1 The Forced Linear Oscillator

In Chapter 3, it was convenient to discuss the unforced linear oscillator in terms of a bob on a
spring, which acts as an analogue for the small-amplitude pulsation of a gas bubble in a liquid.
It is worthwhile using the same analogy when discussing the driven linear oscillator. As before,
the displacement of the bob models the motion of the bubble wall, and the spring constant k
acts as the restoring force (that is, the pressure changes in the gas compressed or rarefied
within the bubble). The driving force, which in the case of the acoustic bubble is the acoustic
pressure changes within the liquid, may be represented in the analogue by a periodic
displacement of the point of attachment of the spring. In this manner, a person holding a
spring would drive a bob at the remote end by raising and lowering the hand. As before,
the inertia associated with the bubble system arises mainly from the motion of the surround-
ing fluid, in contrast to the simple spring-bob analogue, where the inertia resides in the
mass of the bob.

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