A new analytical approximate expression for the period of the simple pendulum is obtained by using a heuristic but pedagogical derivation. This formula depends on two parameters obtained by comparing term-by-term the power-series expansions of the approximate and exact expressions…

Despite its frequent use, there is little understanding of the concept of differential
among upper high school and undergraduate students of physics. As a first step to identify the origin of this situation and to revert it, we have done…

This paper deals with the non-linear oscillation of a simple pendulum and presents an approach for solving the non-linear differential equation that governs its movement by using the harmonic balance method. With this technique it is possible to easily obtain…

The homotopy perturbation method is used to solve the nonlinear differential equation that governs the nonlinear oscillations of a simple pendulum, and an approximate expression for its period is obtained. Only one iteration leads to high accuracy of the solutions…

A new model to describe the influences of chemical processing on thick holograms is presented. The model is based on three hypotheses about the behaviour of holographic recording material during processing. Thickness variations and shear-type effects that are due to…

The Doppler effect is a phenomenon which relates the frequency of the harmonic waves generated by a moving source with the frequency measured by an observer moving with a different velocity from that of the source. The classical Doppler effect…

The asymptotic behaviours for small and large amplitudes, A, of the period for a nonlinear oscillator, where the square of the angular frequency depends quadratically on the velocity, are obtained. These asymptotic expressions are compared with the exact period, T(A),…

Two Lidstedt-Poincaré perturbation based methods are used to solve the nonlinear differential equation of a nonlinear oscillator having the square of the angular frequency depends quadratically on the velocity. Mickens published two interesting papers [1, 2] about this oscillator and…

The first-order harmonic balance method via the first Fourier coefficient is used to construct two approximate frequency–amplitude relations for a conservative nonlinear oscillatory system in which the restoring force has an irrational form. This system corresponds to the motion of…

Equations are derived for determining third-order wavefront aberrations in the plane of the exit pupil from the known aberration in the plane of a holographic lens. Using the transformation equations of wavefront aberration when the plane of the exit pupil…