S6 Oscillations
Motivation
Understanding and exploiting oscillations and waves is central to many aspects of science including physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. In this section we will set out the key concepts, and explore them in the context of a wide range of examples. We will end up in chaos.Objectives
By the end of this section you should:
- be familiar with the key concepts and terms used to describe oscillatory and wavelike phenomena
- be able to set up the simple harmonic equation of motion for a range of systems and determine the associated SHM frequency
- be familiar with the mathematical description of sinusoidal waveforms and the variety of phenomena occurring when different waveforms are combined