The Tempo Is in the Hardware

You'll learnthat an oscillator's period is set by its hardware, not how you launch it.

A spring and a pendulum, each keeping perfect time — and completely deaf to how hard you launch them. Two formulas set every beat, and nothing else gets a vote.

8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · g = 10 m/s² · v5

OSCILLATOR LAB

Before you start

What you're looking at

A block on a spring and a bob on a string oscillating side by side, each with a cycle counter.

The question

What sets each oscillator's tempo — and which knobs turn out not to matter?

Watch for

The counters: the spring runs about five cycles for the pendulum's two, and neither drifts.

What the symbols mean

Two oscillators — spring (mass and stiffness) and pendulum (length and gravity); the counters tally completed cycles.

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