A school-Level Experiment with Simple Pendulum and its Consequences

A ‘Simple Pendulum(SP)’ is a multifaceted subject of study and is perhaps the most significant means of experimentally understanding a large number of properties of a Simple Harmonic Oscillation(S.H.O.),a Damped Harmonic Oscillation(D.H.O.),and a Forced Harmonic Oscillation(F.H.O.) at the Higher Secondary level. Many people [1-8] have studied various properties of S.H.O.and some mention about the gradual decay of amplitude of oscillation. In this paper an experiment on the decay of mechanical energy of a normally oscillating SP is presented and a near-appropriate explanation of the result obtained therein is aimed at.