Sunday, April 29, 2018

Oscillations this week.

This week we can begin our study of oscillations. That is, using mathematical equations to model of things that go back-and-forth.  This is sort of like what we did with trajectory motion, where we might model a motion as \(y(t) = 20 t - 5 t^2\), for example, except that modeling of oscillatory motion is a bit more difficult because the math function we use is more difficult to calculate or visualize. For modeling oscillations we use \(x(t) = A cos(\omega t + \phi_o) \).  (Modeling oscillations is discussed in chapter 15.)

2 comments:

  1. You raise a really good point. We will try to do more on energy conservation problems.

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  2. This week I think we need to focus on mass-spring type problems and oscillations, but I will make a point to find time in the future to do some review of different topics and especially energy conservation related problems, because, I think you are right that that was kind of rushed.

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