- #1
austrosam
- 5
- 0
Hi everybody,
I'm writing an exploration on the mathematics of simple harmonic motion and I stumbled across something I fail to understand in one of my resources (http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/Vibrations.aspx). In the example the author uses toward the end of the resource, the object is initially displaced by 6 inches (don't ask me why he felt the need to use imperial units) but then, the initial condition for displacement given at t=0 is -1/2. Should it not be 6?
My guess is that one can simply set t=0 at any point during the oscillation and not in fact when the oscillation is started, but that still would not quite explain everything. Maybe I am just being very silly...
Many thanks for any advice!
Sam
I'm writing an exploration on the mathematics of simple harmonic motion and I stumbled across something I fail to understand in one of my resources (http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/Vibrations.aspx). In the example the author uses toward the end of the resource, the object is initially displaced by 6 inches (don't ask me why he felt the need to use imperial units) but then, the initial condition for displacement given at t=0 is -1/2. Should it not be 6?
My guess is that one can simply set t=0 at any point during the oscillation and not in fact when the oscillation is started, but that still would not quite explain everything. Maybe I am just being very silly...
Many thanks for any advice!
Sam