A Simple Lissajous Figure Device

• Autores: Jr. Thomas B. Greenslade
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 62, Nº. 3, 2024, págs. 194-195
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Adding two motions together can give an interesting new motion:

    A decreasing exponential plus an increasing exponential gives a catenary curve.1 Circular motion plus linear motion gives a cycloid.

    Uniform motion added at right angles to uniformly accelerated motion gives a parabola.

    Two simple harmonic motions added together in parallel gives beats.

    Two simple harmonic motions added together at right angles gives Lissajous figures.

    Students can easily build pieces of apparatus to demonstrate the last two cases.

    Below, I describe a device for adding together two simple harmonic motions (SHMs) in parallel to give beats and provide some history. The modern apparatus to do this is shown in Fig. 1. Parts of the apparatus in this figure can then be used to make a device that produces simple Lissajous figures. The resulting apparatus is shown in Fig. 2.