Jump to ContentJump to Main Navigation
Accurate Clock Pendulums$
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content.
Accurate Clock Pendulums

Robert J. Matthys

Print publication date: 2004

Print ISBN-13: 9780198529712

Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010

DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198529712.001.0001

ContentsFRONT MATTER
Show Summary Details
Page of

PRINTED FROM OXFORD SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (oxford.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright Oxford University Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in OSO for personal use. date: 07 March 2021

Pendulum air movement: A failed experiment

Pendulum air movement: A failed experiment

Chapter:
(p.191) Chapter 28 Pendulum air movement: A failed experiment
Source:
Accurate Clock Pendulums
Author(s):

Robert James Matthys

Publisher:
Oxford University Press
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198529712.003.0028

A previous experiment showed that the walls of a pendulum clock case can slow down the pendulum via air drag by about 1 second per day. The pendulum has a 2-second period. This chapter describes an experiment designed to find out if the walls' drag on the pendulum could be reduced or made more constant by shaping the walls' inside surface for easier air flow. The concept basically involved rounding the square corners inside the clock case. The results show that a spherical bob had the smoothest airflow, while a large cylindrical bob disturbed the most air. There was very little, if any, air movement near the clock case walls. Any further attempt to affect the airflow should be aimed at the bob's surface-to-air interface, and not at the case walls.

Keywords:   pendulum, pendulum clock case, air drag, air movement, spherical bob, cylindrical bob

Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.

Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.

If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.

To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .