10/21/22, 3:10 PM Oscillation of a Simple Pendulum

Acoustics and Vibration Animations

Daniel A. Russell, Graduate Program in Acoustics, The Pennsylvania State University

This work by Dan Russell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at http://www.acs.psu.edu/drussell/demos.html.

The content of this page was updated on June 18, 2018.

Oscillation of a Simple Pendulum

The Equation of Motion
A simple pendulum consists of a ball (point-mass) m hanging from a (massless) string of length L
point P. When displaced to an initial angle and released, the pendulum will swing back and forth w
applying Newton's secont law for rotational systems, the equation of motion for the pendulum ma
2
d θ
2
τ = Iα ⇒ −mg sin θ L = mL
2
dt

and rearranged as
2
d θ g
+ sin θ = 0
2
dt L

If the amplitude of angular displacement is small enough, so the small angle approximation ($\sin
holds true, then the equation of motion reduces to the equation of simple harmonic motion
2
d θ g
+ θ = 0
2
dt L

The simple harmonic solution is

θ(t) = θo cos(ωt) ,

where θo is the initial angular displacement, and ω = √g/L the natural frequency of the motion. The period of this sytem (time for

2π L
T = = 2π√ .
ω g

Small Angular Displacements Produce Simple Harmonic Motion

The period of a pendulum does not depend on the mass of the ball, but only on the length of the string. Two pendula with different m
length will have the same period. Two pendula with different lengths will different periods; the pendulum with the longer string will ha

How many complete oscillations do the blue and brown pendula complete in the time for one complete oscillation of the longer (blac

From this information and the definition of the period for a simple pendulum, what is the ratio of lengths for the three pendula?

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