Pendulum

It happened that me and some friends of mine found ourselves in front of a pendulum clock. It was in Luzern. Main feature of this clock was the possibility to see the mechanism

I’ve been asked to explain how it was working… Well… for all those that are interested in understanding how it works above you’ll see the magic equation, where:

T = Oscillation time;

g = gravity acceleration;

l = length of pendulum.

Actually this equation works for a “simple pendulum” and is valid for “small” angles (around 15 degree). From the above equation is possible to understand that the oscillation time is independent of the mass and the amplitude of the oscillation. To be honest for “real” situation (still in the hypothesis of small angles) there would be a “small correction”, but anyway it gives the idea.