Take a small weight and tie it to the end of a string. \u00a0Let the weight hang straight down, then pull it over to one side by a small amount and let it go.\u00a0 Once released, the weight will swing back and forth, swinging down from one side before passing through the point where the string is perfectly vertical again, then swinging back up until it comes to a stop on the other side.\u00a0 As the weight swings back and forth, it is undergoing oscillatory motion, moving back and forth about an equilibrium point.<\/p>\n
Many systems exhibit this type of behavior.\u00a0 If you pull a mass attached to the end of a spring and then let it go, the mass will bounce back and forth about an equilibrium point.\u00a0 If you push an inflated pool toy down by a small amount and then let it go, it will bob up and down in the water about the level where it was initially floating.\u00a0 At the atomic level, the bonds between atoms within solids often exhibit this same behavior, bouncing around some central position in the lattice.\u00a0 In each of these cases, the system exhibits this oscillatory behavior because there is a restoring force that attempts to pull the system back to a stable equilibrium point.\u00a0 The simplest form that oscillatory motion can take is when the magnitude of the restoring force acting on an object is directly proportional to the object\u2019s displacement from equilibrium.\u00a0 In this case, the restoring force satisfies Hooke\u2019s Law, `F=kx`, and the object exhibits simple harmonic motion.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t