Pendulum Waves

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Came across this experiment and film of pendulum oscillations and wave movements. It is rather a neat simple experiment and the effects are lovely. :cool2:

http://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k16940&pageid=icb.page80863&pageContentId=icb.pagecontent341734&state=maximize&view=view.do&viewParam_name=indepth.html#a_icb_pagecontent341734

What it shows: Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and random motion. One might call this kinetic art and the choreography of the dance of the pendulums is stunning! Aliasing and quantum revival can also be shown.

How it works: The period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. The length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations. When all 15 pendulums are started together, they quickly fall out of sync—their relative phases continuously change because of their different periods of oscillation. However, after 60 seconds they will all have executed an integral number of oscillations and be back in sync again at that instant, ready to repeat the dance.
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Oh my.... how breathtakingly beautiful, in its on way.

Makes me think of something else =) one moment I'll find the link.
 
Oops, typo in the above post. I meant in it's 'own' way.

http://www.liquidsculpture.com/fine_art/index.htm

I absolutely love the simplicity of this. Well, I can appreciate it is a little more involved with the colours of the liquids and number of droplets. However, for me it seems to bring a delightful resounding 'moment', and captures it... bleh I am not so good at describing beauty ^^

I think this is my favourite one - the website is a little weird so hopefully the img will show, but the picture I am trying to point out is named 'carnival' - it looks like a fairy-mushroom!

http://www.liquidsculpture.com/fine_art/image.htm?title=Carnival
 
cool stuff !
here is another example __http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1M8ciWSgc_k&feature=related
 
Thanks Parallax, this is really cool. I was just about to post a video of this too :)
I received it by e-mail, and when I saw your post I was like man...e-mails travel pretty fast. Of course, it doesn't mean you did get it by mail, but the timing is pretty interesting.
 
andi said:
Thanks Parallax, this is really cool. I was just about to post a video of this too :)
I received it by e-mail, and when I saw your post I was like man...e-mails travel pretty fast. Of course, it doesn't mean you did get it by mail, but the timing is pretty interesting.
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I guess andi it is that six degrees of separation thing. :)
 
The link below is to the first of a three part blog post that does a pretty good job of explaining how it works and how to make your own!

_http://hippomath.blogspot.com/2011/06/pendulum-waves-mathematical-description.html
 
I enjoyed that demonstration, Parallax. From that angle of view I felt I was watching a lego-worm dancing with various parts of itself! :D
 
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