image credit: © Guillaume Paumier / Wikimedia Commons; image source; larger image

Tuned Mass Damper

This driven pendulum damps oscillations in one of the world's tallest buildings, Taipei 101. To find out how a mass damper works, visit Wikipedia: Tuned Mass Damper. To see how the system responded to the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, check out this YouTube video.

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PhET: Masses & Springs

Visit PhET: Masses & Springs for a realistic virtual mass-and-spring lab. You can change variables and see the effect on the motion of the mass. To find out what happens when the mass is driven by an external force, check out Damped Driven Simple Harmonic Oscillator and Driven Harmonic Oscillator.

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image credit: L. Sekaric & H. Craighead, Cornell University; larger image

Cornell News: New Nanoguitar

Unlike the world's smallest guitar, this one, about the size of five red blood cells, can be played--by a 40 megahertz laser beam. To learn more, see Cornell News: New Nanoguitar. The Cornell physicists have also produced a nanoharp.

Simple Harmonic Motion

In resonance, an applied periodic force makes an object vibrate at its natural frequency. To find out more, visit Hyperphysics: Resonance. To learn about simple harmonic motion, visit the Hyperphysics Simple Harmonic Motion.