Recent content by LBB II

gneill: Thanks very much! Your response was very enlightening, and I think it fully answers my question.

By the way, this is not a homework question. So I'm wondering why my post got moved to a forum subtitled "Algebra- and calculus-based general physics homework." Maybe it's because my question is very easy (or stupid?) and there's no other forum for it? Or just because it's related to my...

Thank you, gneill, for your insightful remarks. I agree with them and I understand that the units always must balance. But I'm still perplexed. The MIT notes say that the period of the pendulum, T, if it indeed depends only on L, M, and g (up to a constant of proportionality and a...

gneill: Sorry I didn't make myself clear. (This was my first post here, and I apologize to everyone if I'm being ignorant on this issue and less than clear about my question.) I know how to do the math to find the formula that you arrived at. The "guessing" I was referring to was guessing...

alexmahone: Thank you for addressing my question directly. I'll think more about what you said. I think you've pointed me on the right track. It brings up another question for anyone that cares to answer: Is Hooke's Law only an experimentally verified fact, or has it been derived from...

Thanks berkeman and LawrenceC for your advice, but I already understand dimensional analysis (I'm a math professor). My question was about guessing a formula for T in terms of m (for mass), g, L, and θ. The notes I am reading say that the guessing should be done so that the units come out right...

I'm teaching myself physics by reading notes online posted as an OpenCourseWare physics course at MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/physics/8-01sc-physics-i-classical-mechanics-fall-2010/ I'm already frustrated in the first module. One major lesson involves guessing a formula based on...