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183 - PR 23 - Foucault Pendulum Analysis

Treatment of Coriolis force, which a Foucault pendulum is designed to measure. A heavy analysis is carried out right to the end, and Taylor expansion is the very last step.

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Bradley Nartowt
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1K views2 pages

183 - PR 23 - Foucault Pendulum Analysis

Treatment of Coriolis force, which a Foucault pendulum is designed to measure. A heavy analysis is carried out right to the end, and Taylor expansion is the very last step.

Uploaded by

Bradley Nartowt
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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bradley j. nartowt Saturday, July 06, 2013, 09:32:04 PHYS 6246 classical mechanics Dr.

Whiting
The Foucault pendulum experiment consists in setting a long pendulum in motion at a point on the surface of the rotating
earth with its momentum originally in the vertical plane containing the pendulum bob and the point of suspension. Show
that the pendulums subsequent motion may be described by saying that the plane of oscillation rotates uniformly
2 cos t u radians per day, where u is the co-latitude.
The equations of motion are the same as for a projectile, except with the constraint that the pendulum moves in the z = 0
plane, and that you have x and y components of pendulum-arm-tension acting as ( , ) ( , )
T
bob
F g
m
x y x y = = = a . This
effectively is a consideration of small oscillations.

( ) ( )
2
2
( 0) ( 0)
cos
, , sin cos , cos , 0
cos
g
d z d z g g
dt
g dt
x y x
x y y x x y
y x y
e e
e u
e u u u
e u
= =
( (
= = =
( (


r [I.1]
Here, u is the co-latitude (the effect disappears and reverses direction when one nears and then crosses the equator). This
is the whole point of designing the focault pendulum with, say, a 67-meter armto get motion in the xy-plane free
enough such that such a tiny force as the Coriolis force can be detected, and exaggerate the motion by large swings.
Isotropy: Now, we have a coupled system [I.1]; to decouple it, write x , and put in y ; then compute x , and put in y ,

2
2
2 2
cos
cos cos ( cos )
cos ( cos ) cos ( cos ( )) ( cos 2 )
g
g g g
x x
g g g g g g
x y x x y x
x y x x x x x x
e u
e u e u e u
e u e u e u e u e u
+
= =
= = + = +
[I.2]
Notice that the equations of motion [I.1] are symmetric under x y and e e ; therefore, we should have,

cos cos 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
cos
cos cos ( cos )
( cos ) ( cos ) ( ) ( cos 2 ) ( )
g
g g g
y y
g g g g g g
y x y y x y
y y x y y y
e u e u
e u
e u e u e u
e u e u e u
+
= =
= + + = + + = + + +
[I.3]
This is the exact same equation of motion, so any motion in y-space will be true in x-space as well. However, we will not
solve these equations. We only want to establish homogeneity of the motion from these equations.
Isotropic hookes law from homogeneity: Homogeneity motivates us to switch to xy-plane polar coordinates. Compute
the combination xx yy + from the coupled [I.1], and use the identity
2 2
1
tan ( )
yx xy y
d d
dt x dt
x y
|

+
= = ; also note that from
( , ) (cos , sin ) x y r | | = we can get
2 2
xx yy rr r | + = . Incorporating all this,

2 2 2 2 1 2 2 2 2
cos ( ) ( ) cos ( ) tan ( cos )
g y g g
d
dt x
xx yy xy xy x y x y r r rr r e u e u e u| |

+ = + = + = + = [I.4]
Dividing out by r, we now have an isotropic Hookes law,
2
( cos )
g
r r r e u| | + = , except for this inhomogeneity in
| .
Only | appears, and going to a rotating frame: Since only first derivatives of | appear, we infer that 0 | = . If we
now go to a rotating frame of reference where 0 | = , we have just Hookes Law alone,
g
r r = . If we subtract this
g
r r = , a stand-alone-true-statement, from
2
( cos )
g
r r e u| | + = , we are left with
2
cos cos r r e u| | | e u = = , a promising-looking milestone. Meanwhile, the solution to the isotropic hookes
law is ( ) cos( ) sin( ) r t A t B t = O + O for / g O . Averaging this over 1 day (note that 1 day corresponds to
1
T
e
=

2
2 2
0
1
cos cos cos sin cos 2 cos r r dt
t
| e u e u e u t t t u
e
= = = + =
}
[I.5]
An alternate solution is in many textbooks, but the treatment is cumbersome. One source instructs us to multiply the
second equation in [I.1] by i and add them together to get 2 cos 0
g
_ e u _ _ + + = i , where x y _ + i , a sort of
rotational ansatz. Guessing
t
Ae
o
_ =
i
then gives an equation for the guessed frequencyo , which is the frequency of
x y _ + i ; this leads to a quadratic with important roots,

2 2 2 2
2 cos 0 cos cos cos ( )
g g g
o e uo o e u e u e u e

+ = = + = + O [I.6]
This gives us an equation of motion
cos ( / ) ( / )
( ) ( )
t g t g t
t e Ae Be
e u
_

= +
i i i
. Real and imaginary parts of this equation, by
construction, yield ( ), ( ) x t y t , meaning,
( ) ( )
( ) cos( cos ) sin( cos ) cos( cos ) sin( cos ) t A t B t x B t A t y e u e u e u e u = + + r [I.7]
What is the direction of rotation?
By looking at [I.7] (a rotation matrix for the +| direction) or my derived cos | e u = , one can see that you are rotating
counterclockwise in the xy-plane. Since the coordinate system matches that for which we fired projectiles in (see problem
4.23) refer to there in order to interpret which cartesian directions are north, south, east west.

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