Pendulum experiment 1 - swing time other worksheets
for use with materialworlds pendulum simulation
© materialworlds.com 2001

In this experiment you'll investigate what factors affect the time it takes the pendulum to make a complete swing. To help you the time taken for the last complete swing is automatically displayed below the scrolling graph - see if you can find this now.

1. One thing you might notice is that the pendulum's swing gradually dies away - each swing being smaller than the last. Before you start experimenting you need to adjust one of the controls to make the pendulum's swing as constant as possible.

Which control was this?


What new value did you adjust it to?



If the pendulum stops swinging, just pull it sideways with the mouse or click the rewind button. Rewind also resets length and mass back to their initial values. Clicking the browser's refresh button resets gravity and friction too.

2. Once you've got the pendulum swinging again, write down the times taken for a few consecutive swings.
(try pausing the simulation after each new time comes out to give yourself time to write it down).

	swing 1	swing 2	swing 3	swing 4
Time taken for swing: (the pendulum's period)

How much variation is there between these times?





Now try increasing and decreasing gravity and then the pendulum's length and mass - and find what difference each of them makes.
Let the pendulum settle down for at a whole cycle before you take a new reading - so that the swing time doesn't include any period in which something was changed.

3. How does changing the strength of gravity effect the time taken for the pendulum to make a complete swing?

4. What is the effect of changing the pendulum's length?

5. What is the effect of changing the pendulum's mass?

6. What difference does the size (or amplitude) of the pendulum's swing make?