Harmonic oscillator

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A harmonic oscillator is a system that experiences a restoring force proportional to its displacement from equilibrium and directed back towards that equilibrium. In the ideal undamped case, it produces sinusoidal motion with a constant natural frequency.

A mass attached to a spring and a pendulum moving through small angles are common approximations. Electrical circuits, molecular vibrations, structural modes, and sound-producing systems can also behave as harmonic oscillators.

Damping removes energy and gradually reduces amplitude, while an external periodic force can drive the oscillator. When the driving frequency approaches the natural frequency, resonance can produce a large response.

The harmonic oscillator is one of the most important models in physics and mathematics because complicated systems can often be approximated as collections of independent oscillatory modes. It is central to acoustics, mechanics, electronics, wave theory, and quantum mechanics.

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• Source / publisher: Wikipedia
• URL type: WWW
• Credits: Wikipedia
• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_oscillator