Damped Oscillations, Forced Oscillations, and Resonance (Sit In)

This morning, we had no class in Physics 10. It is because Sir Perry was in Tagaytay.

For the past times, I really could not imagine a day without physics or any little bit of science where I could put physics in and relate those concepts in life. It was not because I just wanted to keep on making posts in this blog at least twice a week. It was because I always want to make sense of the little time in my short life, be a drunk intellectual to keep learning all the time, and see what those things really mean in my life. The last thing concentrates on the hard sciences, especially physics.

So, when Ma'am Ekkay posted an announcement in the public forum in the University Virtual Learning Environmet (UVLE), I really thought of something that I could do with my life with the big empty time that I had. It was not until then that I found it in a little corner – that I would sit in a higher physics class that I knew I could understand with the stock knowledge that I have. So, I decided to sit in the Physics 71 (Elementary Physics I that composes of mechanics) under Ms Mikaela Irene Fudolig (Ma'am Mikki for short).

At first, I was feeling a little bit of inferiority to get inside the classroom because I knew that most of the students inside were older than me. They really were because Physics 71 was a course designed further for engineering and non-physics science majors and it was usually included in the first semester of the Second Year in the curriculum. I really felt such inferiority even if my geology major friend, Mako, told me to get in since Ma'am Mikki does not check the attendance. But I really wanted to get inside and attend the class. So, I sat for a moment outside and waited for the instructor to arrive, so that I could be courteous enough to ask her permission to sit in her class. Luckily, she was kind and she accepted my permission.

The discussion was about damped oscillations, forced oscillations, and resonance. And to summarize Ma'am Mikki's discussion for the layman, idealized oscillating systems (take the pendulums and bells for examples) are frictionless. However, there exists a dissipative force called damping. Damping then is further divided into three categories: critical damping, overdamping, and underdamping. But no matter such damping, the system can be maintained in a constant-amplitude oscillation through a factor called driving force. When the driving force is applied, the system is in a forced oscillation. Such thing is different from a system that is displace, left alone, and oscillates with a natural angular frequency. And there exists a fact that there is an amplitude peak at driving frequencies close to the natural frequency of the system called resonance.

Now, what does that relate with life. Damping exists in our life in the face of our own problems, circumstances, dilemmas, or whatsoever we call it. And our life may just be affected by such things by proceeding not with the thing we want to do, giving up what we are doing by then, and slowing us down with what you are doing until you have achieved nothing. But no matter how big such problem is, we can keep on doing the things we want to do by forcing ourselves either through the sense of urgency or encouragement.

P S To Mako, thank you very much for encouraging me to get inside and do the thing that I want to.

To Ma'am Mikki, my profound gratitude is yours for letting me sit in your class for me to make sense of my time, to be drunk for knowledge, and to enlighten life through such lesson.