How does this happen???

[mysteryowl]

Link to tweet

Watch all the way through

[claudette]

1. Physics?

Beautiful to watch. Wish i knew the law of nature that makes this happen.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Try it in a vacuum to see if the same thing happens.

Also, the swinging weights introduce harmonics into the support structure. These harmonics are passed on to all the weights.

Try this again, but with an extremely rigid support structure. Does the same thing happen?

Random thoughts.

[Ptah]

3. The support structure is rigid.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Then the swinging weights are creating vortices that affect the motion of the other balls. NT

[Ptah]

6. Not true.

[Ptah]

7. P.S.

Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and (seemingly) random motion.

The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in 60 seconds, and the length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations in 60 seconds.

Our apparatus was built from a design published by Richard Berg [Am J Phys 59(2), 186-187 (1991) https://doi.org/10.1119/1.16608] at the University of Maryland. The particular apparatus shown here was built by our own Nils Sorensen.

For more details see https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqazBMQkVUc2ZpZ2hzVFFHZ1dMRlZvelVMZzY4UXxBQ3Jtc0trSzlqa1h3MUFOTUFfLU85NWp2WDZVeXlfVHVZdjJyZ3BNbDZRV1V3dlRpb3MtV0tyUlFlako5QlRIMC1XM2dNSnlteE1WdHQ5ZUI4MnlMaGRiYTd0ek5TWVlYVnlYZmM5bzd5ZUN3UnluQURHM20yMA&q=http%3A%2F%2Fsciencedemonstrations.fas.harvard.edu%2Fpresentations%2Fpendulum-waves&v=yVkdfJ9PkRQ

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. Okay, I see. From the end you can't make out that the pendulums are of different lengths.

I was working on the assumption that all the weights had equal details, tension in the string, string length, etc.

Thanks. And good morning.

[Ptah]

10. No matter the explanation, it is fascinating.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

11. Oh, definitely. Thanks again. NT

[rurallib]

5. God did it

[Emile]

9. Same God that wouldn't allow Trump a

second term in office.

[LetsGetSmartAboutIt]

12. Different length strings

That gives each a different swing duration everything’s else is just patterns that emerge from the different swing periods of each pendulum.

I was thinking it was Foucault pendulum effect but it happens too fast I think.

Not a physics expert and I could be totally wrong, but that should explain it.

I also refuse to look at twitter/x posts out of general principals, so there may be other explanations I haven’t thought of.

Still very cool.

[Ptah]

13. Here's a better view:

[sinkingfeeling]

14. The wires attaching the balls are of different lengths. When the guy

aligns them, we're looking at it from an angle, so they appear to be in a straight line.