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Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws, which provide the basis for Newtonian mechanics, can be paraphrased as follows: A body remains at rest, or in motion at a constant speed in a straight line, except insofar as it is acted upon by ...
A molecular vibration is a periodic motion of the atoms of a molecule relative to each other, such that the center of mass of the molecule remains unchanged. The typical vibrational frequencies range from less than 10 13 Hz to approximately 10 14 Hz, corresponding to wavenumbers of approximately 300 to 3000 cm −1 and wavelengths of approximately 30 to 3 μm.
A net restoring force then slows it down until its velocity reaches zero, whereupon it is accelerated back to the equilibrium position again. As long as the system has no energy loss, the mass continues to oscillate. Thus simple harmonic motion is a type of periodic motion.
An oscillator is a physical system characterized by periodic motion, such as a pendulum, tuning fork, or vibrating diatomic molecule.Mathematically speaking, the essential feature of an oscillator is that for some coordinate x of the system, a force whose magnitude depends on x will push x away from extreme values and back toward some central value x 0, causing x to oscillate between extremes.
In classical mechanics, Poinsot's construction (after Louis Poinsot) is a geometrical method for visualizing the torque-free motion of a rotating rigid body, that is, the motion of a rigid body on which no external forces are acting. This motion has four constants: the kinetic energy of the body and the three components of the angular momentum ...
The systems where the restoring force on a body is directly proportional to its displacement, such as the dynamics of the spring-mass system, are described mathematically by the simple harmonic oscillator and the regular periodic motion is known as simple harmonic motion.
However, such periodic sequences are repelling rather than attracting, meaning that if the evolving variable is outside the sequence, however close, it will not enter the sequence and in fact, will diverge from it. Thus for almost all initial conditions, the variable evolves chaotically with non-periodic behavior.
In such a situation, a force is applied in the direction of motion while the kinetic friction force exactly opposes the applied force. This results in zero net force, but since the object started with a non-zero velocity, it continues to move with a non-zero velocity. Aristotle misinterpreted this motion as being caused by the applied force.