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The pendulum is a system encountered by first-year physics students, but it is usually not solved without approximations as it involves an elliptic integral. I was interested by this 'complicated' behavior for such a simple system, so I started by animating a single pendulum starting with a large angle. I proceeded to couple an arbitrary number of pendulums with springs, as this would now be a (seemingly) impossible system to solve analytically, but it can be simulated with any set of starting initial conditions and intrinsic properties.
pendulum_spring.movThis example is made using random initial conditions with relatively small angles. The spring is not very stiff, and there is no air resistance. These, along with gravitational acceleration, mass, length of the rope, and separation between adjacent pendulums are all parameters that can be changed directly in the 'main' function.
This example is made using random initial conditions with relatively small angles. The spring is not very stiff, and there is no air resistance. These, along with gravitational acceleration, mass, length of the rope, and separation between adjacent pendulums are all parameters that can be changed directly in the 'main' function.
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