Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1981

Department 1

Physics

Abstract

A classroom demonstration, a variation of the simple swinging pendulum, is described. In our "portulum," a ball, driven by short blasts of air, rolls along a curved tube. The design of this device, its construction, and its usefulness to the teaching of physics are discussed. It is also shown that the oscillations of the rolling ball have the same mathematical form as the oscillations of the ball swinging along the same path, but with a lower frequency.

DOI

10.1119/1.12458

Required Publisher's Statement

Original version available from the publisher at: http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v49/i6/p557_s1?isAuthorized=no

Included in

Physics Commons

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