On 07/22/2010 02:13 AM, Morris Odell wrote:
The pendulum requires a sustaining system to compensate for the inevitable energy loss with each swing. The system is located in the building and therefore rotates relative to the pendulum. It needs to provide an impulse which does not affect the plane of oscillation of the pendulum. I was thinking of an electromagnet located below the centre of the swing which would be pulsed appropriately as the bob passes over it.
As a kid, I did a self sustaining pendulum with no moving parts and no magnets:
The bob was suspended by two parallel wires, lacquered together, and shorted at the bob end. As the bob passed over the center, a one-shot sent a good-sized current pulse through the wire, heating it, making it slightly longer, and then shrink again as it cooled at the outside of the swing.
For a heavy pendulum, and thick wire, the time constant in the cooling phase will likely make this infeasible.
/Kasper Pedersen _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
