The Double Pendulum and Beyond: Investigating Chaos With Multi-Armed Pendulums

Using VPython simulations to model chaotic motion and investigate what defines a chaotic system.

Any physics student has examined the lowly pendulum, probably more than they wanted to. Along with the mass on a spring, pendulums are the quintessential example of simple harmonic motion. The keyword there is simple. They, as you may know, are incredibly easy to model mathematically. The period of the pendulum can be represented by the formula below, where g is the force of gravity …

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