Constellation, le dépôt institutionnel de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi

Résumé

In an attempt to explain the tendency of Foucault pendula to develop elliptical orbits, Kamerlingh Onnes derived equations of motion that suggest the use of great circles on a spherical surface as a graphical illustration for an anisotropic bi-dimensional harmonic oscillator, although he did not himself exploit the idea any further. The concept of anisosphere is introduced in this work as a new means of interpreting pendulum motion. It can be generalized to the case of any two-dimensional (2-D) oscillating system, linear or nonlinear, including the case where coupling between the 2 degrees of freedom is present. Earlier pendulum experiments in the literature are revisited and reanalyzed as a test for the anisosphere approach. While that graphical method can be applied to strongly nonlinear cases with great simplicity, this part I is illustrated through a revisit of Kamerlingh Onnes’ dissertation, where a high performance pendulum skillfully emulates a 2-D harmonic oscillator. Anisotropy due to damping is also described. A novel experiment strategy based on the anisosphere approach is proposed. Finally, recent original results with a long pendulum using an electronic recording alidade are presented. A gain in precision over traditional methods by 2–3 orders of magnitude is achieved.