oscillate
(verb)
To swing back and forth, especially if with a regular rhythm.
Examples of oscillate in the following topics:
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Driven Oscillations and Resonance
- Driven harmonic oscillators are damped oscillators further affected by an externally applied force.
- If a frictional force (damping) proportional to the velocity is also present, the harmonic oscillator is described as a damped oscillator.
- Driven harmonic oscillators are damped oscillators further affected by an externally applied force F(t).
- The time an oscillator needs to adapt to changed external conditions is of the order τ = 1/(ζ0).
- Describe a driven harmonic oscillator as a type of damped oscillator
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Applications of Second-Order Differential Equations
- In this atom, we will learn about the harmonic oscillator, which is one of the simplest yet most important mechanical system in physics.
- If $F$ is the only force acting on the system, the system is called a simple harmonic oscillator, and it undergoes simple harmonic motion: sinusoidal oscillations about the equilibrium point, with a constant amplitude and a constant frequency.
- In real oscillators, friction (or damping) slows the motion of the system.
- Driven harmonic oscillator: Driven harmonic oscillators are damped oscillators further affected by an externally applied force $F(t)$.
- A solution of damped harmonic oscillator.
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Forced Vibrations and Resonance
- In this example, he or she is causing a forced oscillation (or vibration).
- After driving the ball at its natural frequency, the ball's oscillations increase in amplitude with each oscillation for as long as it is driven.
- In real life, most oscillators have damping present in the system.
- These features of driven harmonic oscillators apply to a huge variety of systems.
- Heavy cross winds drove the bridge into oscillations at its resonant frequency.
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The Production of Electromagnetic Waves
- As it travels through space it behaves like a wave, and has an oscillating electric field component and an oscillating magnetic field.
- These waves oscillate perpendicularly to and in phase with one another.
- When it accelerates as part of an oscillatory motion, the charged particle creates ripples, or oscillations, in its electric field, and also produces a magnetic field (as predicted by Maxwell's equations).
- This means that an electric field that oscillates as a function of time will produce a magnetic field, and a magnetic field that changes as a function of time will produce an electric field.
- Electromagnetic waves are a self-propagating transverse wave of oscillating electric and magnetic fields.
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Longitudinal Waves
- Longitudinal waves, sometimes called compression waves, oscillate in the direction of propagation.
- The difference is that each particle which makes up the medium through which a longitudinal wave propagates oscillates along the axis of propagation.
- In the example of the Slinky, each coil will oscillate at a point but will not travel the length of the Slinky.
- Matter in the medium is periodically displaced by a sound wave, and thus oscillates.
- The wave propagates in the same direction of oscillation.
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Oscillator Strengths
- A classical harmonic oscillator driven by electromagnetic radiation has a cross-section to absorb radiation of
- Except for the degeneracy factors for the two states, the Einstein coefficients will be the same, so we can define an oscillator strength for stimulated emission as well,
- There are several summation rules that restrict the values of the oscillator strengths,
- We can also separate the emission from absorption oscillator strengths
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Energy in a Simple Harmonic Oscillator
- The total energy in a simple harmonic oscillator is the constant sum of the potential and kinetic energies.
- In the case of undamped, simple harmonic motion, the energy oscillates back and forth between kinetic and potential, going completely from one to the other as the system oscillates.
- A known mass is hung from a spring of known spring constant and allowed to oscillate.
- The time for one oscillation (period) is measured.
- Explain why the total energy of the harmonic oscillator is constant
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Waves
- In nature, oscillations are found everywhere.
- From the jiggling of atoms to the large oscillations of sea waves, we find examples of vibrations in almost every physical system.
- They consist, instead, of oscillations or vibrations around almost fixed locations.
- A wave can be transverse or longitudinal depending on the direction of its oscillation.
- Longitudinal waves occur when the oscillations are parallel to the direction of propagation.
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Transverse Waves
- If a transverse wave is moving in the positive x-direction, its oscillations are in up and down directions that lie in the y–z plane.
- Transverse waves are waves that are oscillating perpendicularly to the direction of propagation.
- Here we observe that the wave is moving in t and oscillating in the x-y plane.
- A wave can be thought as comprising many particles (as seen in the figure) which oscillate up and down.
- As time passes the oscillations are separated by units of time.
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Forced motion
- The forcing function doesn't know anything about the natural frequency of the system and there is no reason why the forced oscillation of the mass will occur at $\omega_0$ .
- The motion of the mass with no applied force is an example of a free oscillation.
- Otherwise the oscillations are forced.
- An important example of a free oscillation is the motion of the entire earth after a great earthquake.
- Free oscillations are also called transients since for any real system in the absence of a forcing term, the damping will cause the motion to die out.