Oscillations
Oscillations are plentiful in our natural world - we see them everywhere!
- When you throw a stone into a puddle ripples to spread out to the edges.
- When you pluck a guitar string, the string vibrates back and forth.
- When you touch a tree branch it oscillates.
- When you rock a small boat, it wobbles to and fro in the water before coming to rest again.
- When you stretch out a spring and release it, the spring goes back and forth between being compressed and being stretched out.
Oscillation is the natural world’s way of returning a system to its equilibrium position - the stable position of the system where the net force acting on it is zero.
If you throw a system off-balance, it doesn’t simply return to the way it was; it oscillates back and forth about the equilibrium position.
The system oscillates as a way of giving off energy. A system that is oscillating has been given extra energy by some outside force - it has more energy than a system in its equilibrium position.
The movement of an oscillating body is called 'harmonic motion'.