Oscillation Practice Problems
Physics
Name:
Period:
1. Katie is swinging back and forth in her hammock while studying for a physics test.
(a) Her sister sneaks up on her and gives her a push. How does the push affect the period of Katie’s motion?
(b) Katie decides that she is oscillating too fast and it is making her a little queasy as she is trying to study.
How could she decrease her frequency?
2. While leaving her house to go to school, Brittany forgot about the 5 kg plant she hung from a 0.7m rope on
the front porch the night before. She bumps her head on the plant, forcing it to swing in simple harmonic
motion.
(a) What is the period of the swinging plant?
(b) What is the frequency of the swinging plant?
3. While preparing to do a flip off a 7 m long rope swing and into the water, Landon steps onto the platform,
where the rope makes a 15° angle from the fulcrum. In order to complete a flip, Landon must let go of the rope
at its maximum height.
(a) While swinging on the rope, what is Landon’s frequency?
(b) How long should Landon wait after he swings from the platform
before letting go?
(c) How much of his swing has he completed in 0.8 seconds?
4. Claudio attaches his 3 kg binder to a slinky hanging from the ceiling. Claudio pulls the binder down and
releases it, letting it oscillate in simple harmonic motion.
(a) If the slinky has a spring constant of 45 N/m, what is the period of the oscillating binder?
(b) How many oscillations does it complete in ten seconds?
5. In order to hypnotize the crowd by dangling his watch from a chain, the hypnotist knows his watch must
complete three full swings back and forth every four seconds.
(a) How long of a chain should he use?
(b) NASA decides to send the hypnotist to a newly discovered planet, with a gravitational field of 4 N/kg, in
the hopes of subduing the violent natives. If the natives’ hypnotic frequency is known to be 0.25 Hz, how long
of a chain should the hypnotist bring with him?
6. Over the weekend, Anton took his dune buggy for a test run at Pacific City to try out his brand new shock
absorbers he had installed over each tire. After Anton launches his 1000 kg dune buggy off of a sand dune, his
buggy lands and bounces on the shock absorbers in simple harmonic motion, completing two full bounces every
three seconds.
(a) What is the period of the buggy bouncing?
(b) What is the spring constant of each shock
absorber?
(c) Anton feels that the buggy’s bounce is too jolty.
What could he do to increase the period of each bounce?