Oscillation: The Varying Forms

Jan. 30, 2012 - Feb. 30, 2012 - 7th and 8th Meeting of Physics 101.1 Lab

After a tedious experiment about projectile motion, we started to construct our own set-up to verify the different aspects of harmonic oscillation. The only thing that made this experiment hard to digest is the fact that we can't be certain in every observation that we can get. Each value can yield different results, which may stray to the theoretical value of the period of the set-up. Getting into these things made us prepare for the future experiments of the world of physics.

Let me tell a little of oscillation. Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. The process can be examined in different forms: by a spring mass system, a simple pendulum, or a physical pendulum. For me, the easiest to observe is the simple pendulum, since the set-up requires a little work to be done. 

The lab was noisy because of the noise made by falling mass samples. Our spring was too loose, which our experiment hard to observe. Nevertheless, we managed to get what we want: the data to prove our hypothesis. This and all that, I say, that our experiment was done profusely, although human errors and uncertainties were floating in the overall observations. The technical report to be submitted will be hard to do, since we got three experiments at hand. - Bartz,2012