Wilberforce Pendulum

The harmonic oscillator, with all its manifestations, is an extensively studied system. It possesses a single degree of freedom. More complicated systems have more degrees of freedom, for example, two pendulums connected by a spring. In such cases, the behaviour of each variable influences the other which leads to a coupling between the individual degrees of freedom. Energy can toggle between the two degrees of freedom. A well-known example is the Wilberforce pendulum, where the oscillation alternates between the longitudinal stretching of a vertical spring and the rotation of a cylindrical object hung at the end of that spring. The aim of this experiment is to investigate the dynamics of the Wilberforce pendulum.