pendulum
Sign in to savethumb|300px|"Simple gravity pendulum" model assumes no friction or air resistance.
AI overview
A pendulum is a weight suspended from a fixed point that swings back and forth under the influence of gravity. Pendulums matter because their regular, predictable motion has made them useful for timekeeping and studying the principles of physics.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
45 sectionsContents
- Mechanics
- Simple gravity pendulum {{anchor|Simple}}
- Period of oscillation
- Compound pendulum
- Double pendulum
- History
- 1602: Galileo's research
- 1656: The pendulum clock
- 1673: Huygens's ''Horologium Oscillatorium''
- 1721: Temperature compensated pendulums
- 1851: Foucault pendulum
- 1930: Decline in use
- Use for time measurement
- Clock pendulums
- Temperature compensation
- Mercury pendulum
- Gridiron pendulum
- Invar and fused quartz
- Atmospheric pressure
- Gravity
- Accuracy of pendulums as timekeepers
- ''Q'' factor
- Escapement
- The Airy condition
- Gravity measurement
- The seconds pendulum
- Early observations
- Kater's pendulum
- Later pendulum gravimeters
- Standard of length
- Early proposals
- The metre
- Britain and Denmark
- Other uses
- Railroading
- Seismometers
- Schuler tuning
- Coupled pendulums
- Religious practice
- Education
- Torture device
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Further reading
thumb|300px|"Simple gravity pendulum" model assumes no friction or air resistance.
A pendulum is a device made of a weight suspended from a pivot so that it can swing freely. When a pendulum is displaced sideways from its resting, equilibrium position, it is subject to a restoring force due to gravity that will accelerate it back toward the equilibrium position. When released, the restoring force acting on the pendulum's mass causes it to oscillate about the equilibrium position, swinging back and forth. The time for one complete cycle, a left swing and a right swing, is called the period. The period depends on the length of the pendulum and also to a slight degree on the amplitude, the width of the pendulum's swing. The SI unit of the period of a pendulum is the second (s).