Recent content by murrmac

I just realized that I should have reversed the female /male thing ... Thanks for reply, sophiecentaur. .. I will never totally get my head around the physics involved, but at least i am now better equipped to make an experimental stab at the real thing.

See .. this is where I get lost ... if you imagine the most efficient and most frictionless bearing from which a pendulum could swing, to my mind it would consist of a very accurately ground diamond upper block with a ( female) 90 degree channel machined into it, and then the end of the...

Borek, starting off *absolutely level* means that the pendulum is released at exactly 90 degrees to the gravitational pull of the Earth ... if they were released at the * bottom position* they would start off *absolutely plumb* (and of course with no motion whatsoever) .. but again, I speak as a...

My ( severely limited) understanding of classical physics is that the mass of the bob has no effect on the period of oscillation. My gut feeling (which will be put to the test in the course of this project) is that this is not in fact the case ... but of course the theoretical physics assumes a...

And again, crossposted with Borek...

Thanks, Matterwave ... crossposted there ...

Again, thanks, Borek. I have a workshop in which I can mill, turn, drill, bore and surface grind any material to a level of accuracy which exceeds .0001" , so experimentally I can verify any postulate. I am envisaging a pendulum which consists of a 1" x 2" x 24" rectangular block of material...

Thanks Borek, but I know when I am out of my depth. I assume from the lack of response to the pendulum question that I have unwittingly transgressed the forum etiquette again ... maybe it's bad form to ask two questions in one post ? ...or maybe the answer is so obvious that no one would...

Thanks jbriggs444 ... as you can tell I am no physicist, not even a student of physics ... I am a practical craftsman and this question is in connection with a kinetic sculpture which I have been commissioned to manufacture. So if I have this right, then assuming that the two weights are 10...

I know that if a beam is balanced on a central pivot point with equal weights on either end, the beam will be in equilibrium. If the pivot point were to to be moved to, say, a quarter of the distance from one end, then obviously more weight would be required on the "short" side of the beam to...

Thanks for replies. So, just to clarify, there is no increase in mechanical advantage in figure 3 no matter how far the beam were to extend down below the surface ? (ignoring the weight of the beam itself btw)

I would be much obliged if the engineers on the forum could answer the following query regarding mechanical advantage. I don't require exact calculations or anything, just a quick yes or no, along with some simple KISS type explanation will be gratefully received. So, we have a situation in...

Yes, I did read, and understand, the material in the link to which you refer. Hence my posting the EDIT to the first post, in which I included the sentence : ..."https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=273135 contains a useful link to a paper in which the phenomenon is discussed...

Can anybody explain how this inverted icicle could have come to be formed ? This mug of water had been sitting outside for a few days, last night the temperature in Edinburgh dropped to below zero, and this morning I saw that this ice stalagmite had formed. There was no source of dripping...

Is there such a thing as "Objective Probability"? IMHO, no. I am no mathematician, I am in awe of the mathematical prowess manifested by all the contributors to this forum, but I do make my living by assessing probabilities (intuitively), and thankfully I am able to make the correct...