Activity 7

Last week we did experiments on simple harmonic motion. We did experiments on a simple pendulum, a physical pendulum and a spring and mass system. All of these tree follows the equations for the simple harmonic motion: Simple harmonic motion is the simplest kind of oscillation. That is when the restoring force is directly proportional to the displacement from the equilibrium. Most oscillations that we observe are not just as simple as  simple harmonic motion but we can do approximate it as one. The picture on the right represents the setup.

By timing the period or the time it takes for one oscillation to occur, we can get some of the physical properties of the object like the moment of inertia of a physical pendulum. Errors in the data obtain may be caused by the large amplitude. Simple harmonic motion is only true for these cases for small amplitude oscillations. Here are the data obtained:

Simple Pendulum
Trial	Period		Length of string
1	0.947		22 cm
2	0.998
3	0.987
4	0.97
5	0.977

Spring and mass system
Trial	Period	mass
1	0.363	1000 g
2	0.356
3	0.377
4	0.353
5	0.361

Physical pendulum
Trial	Period	mass	length
1	0.927	43.3 g	33.9 cm
2	0.936
3	0.946
4	0.92
5	0.94