Investigations into the motion of a simple pendulum

Introduction
The simple pendulum was first investigated scientifically by Galileo in 1602 after watching a chandelier swing back and forth in Pisa cathedral whilst a student there some time earlier. From his investigations Galileo noticed a number of interesting aspects to their motion, the most important of these being that the time period is independent of the amplitude of oscillation and the mass of the pendulum and that the square of the time period varies directly with the length. Galileo also claimed that the period of the pendulum is independent of its amplitude; however, this is not true. In this investigation I am going to test a number of these assertions: whether the time period is independent of the amplitude whether the time period is independent of the mass and what is the value of the gravitational acceleration which is part of the constant of proportionality.

Mathematics
From analysis of an idealised pendulum this relationship can be derived. When the pendulum is displaced some angle (as measured from the vertical) the weight of the bob has components perpendicular to and parallel to the pendulum string. These components are and respectively. The component perpendicular to the string exerts a torque of magnitude and according to the rotational form of Newtons Second Law this must be equal in magnitude to the time derivative of the angular momentum. Since the torque, however, is always in the opposite direction to that which the angle is measured the fundamental equation of motion for a pendulum is: Since the mass of the string is negligible to that of the bob the moment of inertia of the system is , where is the distance from pivot to the centre of mass of the bob. This equation then simplifies to: This differential equation has no elementary solution. However, if a small angle approximation is taken, such that , then the general solution (given that at the initial time the displacement is at a maximum) is , where is initial angle and is the average angular velocity. From this solution the empirical law of Galileo for the time period follows: However, this formula is only valid when the small angle approximation is valid. The exact analytic solution to the original differential equation has an infinite power series: ( )

For small angles this simplifies to the previous formula, however, as the angle increases it becomes clear that the later terms play a much larger role and cannot be ignored in the power series. Both these formulae can easily be arranged to isolate measured depeding on the appropriate formula. with two or three unknowns left to be

Experiment
The experimental procedure revolved around producing the most accurate pendulum possible given the constraints of the equipment available. The apparatus consisted of a retort stand which was fixed to the bench using G clamps to provide a solid base for the pendulum so as to restrict as much secondary motion as possible. From the stand a clamp was attached and from its arm the pendulum was suspended and a protractor placed. The procedure was as follows: 1. Add the masses to the string and adjust the length of the string until it measured 0.65m. 2. Displace pendulum to the specified initial angle as marked by the protractor 3. Release the pendulum, let it swing once, then begin stopwatch the moment it passes the vertical position 4. Count 10 complete oscillations and then stop the time 5. Record observations and repeat