- #1
eurekameh
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http://img196.imageshack.us/i/unledup.png/
So we have a physical pendulum. It has a mass of m=200 g and radius 10 cm. It's suspended from point O at a distance h=8 cm. from center C. It is displaced 0.1 rad and released from rest at t=0.
I'm struggling to find the mechanical energy of this pendulum. When it is displaced 0.1 rad before it is released, its mechanical energy is all in the form of potential energy U=mgy.
I've been working on this for a while now; I feel like this should be an easy problem and I'm overthinking it, but I'm making really complicated triangles and doing things like cos(0.1)=x/(R+h) and then (R+h) - x to find y. I'm not getting the correct answer though, which is 7.83 x 10^-4 J.
So we have a physical pendulum. It has a mass of m=200 g and radius 10 cm. It's suspended from point O at a distance h=8 cm. from center C. It is displaced 0.1 rad and released from rest at t=0.
I'm struggling to find the mechanical energy of this pendulum. When it is displaced 0.1 rad before it is released, its mechanical energy is all in the form of potential energy U=mgy.
I've been working on this for a while now; I feel like this should be an easy problem and I'm overthinking it, but I'm making really complicated triangles and doing things like cos(0.1)=x/(R+h) and then (R+h) - x to find y. I'm not getting the correct answer though, which is 7.83 x 10^-4 J.