would clock's pendulum oscillate reliably on an elevator?
151602
it would have no affect on a pendulum. \n\nstudies at the university of chico found that the up and down motion does not conflict in any way with the side to side motion of a pendulum. \n\nthe study also found that most of the research from the university of chico is conducted by a group of approximately 20 people ranging in age from 12 to 25.
969863
There is also friction caused by the turning of the gears.  The pendulum need enough mass to overcome this.
3944
The Trolley + Child being one single system, the speed of the Centre of Mass would not vary. It would remain the same velocity V.
474836
Heres a great page on the history and creation of the elevator:\n\nhttp://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blelevator.htm
202904
A regular pendulum moves back and forth while hanging from a point. A torsional pendulum twists clockwise and counterclockwise while hanging from a point. In each case, the heavier the lower end of the pendulum, the longer it will swing or rotate. A torsional pendulum also works better with a rubber or other "live" length of material. Using a rope will not give you much rotation after it unwinds this first time.
830124
Nothin would happen.\nIf you consider two bodies the earth (name it E) and a large mass (m). \ninitially M rests on E. and you lift mass M. the force used to lift it will also act on E.\nAlso if you consider the mass M and E. as a system force exerted on dropping M would be internal and since internal forces do not cause acc. the Earth will not get unbalanced.\n\nThats good for us isn't it...
767639
Don't things fall at 32ft/sec.
1160752
The one thing that made the elevator or lift a possibility for comercial use was the invention by Mr. Otis of the mechanical break system that prevents the car from falling even when the cable is cut.  It basically drives a wedge against the wheels and the rails when the car starts to go down faster than it should. \n\nPower outages pose no threat since the car is counter balanced by a heavy counter weight and the motor and gears simply stop in position with no car movement during a power outage.\n\nThe biggest concern is, what happens if a cable snaps?  Mr. Otis toured the country demostrating his brake system by acutually getting in a car, having it raised and then he personally chopped through the rope suspending it.  Some cars will lurch and drop a couple of feet then stop and lurch again and will keep doing this until the car is finally stopped at the bottom of the shaft.  This kind of drop is really scary but no one has died from a falling elevator due to a cable failure as far as I can remember.
244773
Things will go wrong over an extended period of time at the same rate as their probability for going wrong. \n\nYou would have a better chance at breaking the law of gravity.
879231
The simple pendulum requires a massless connection between the pivot and the oscillating mass.  Also, the mass must be concentrated at one discrete radius (can have no radial thickness).  Add air and pivot drag to these and you essentially have the difference between theory & reality........
609002
It doesn't actually come in contact with anything to cause friction.  When a "machine" makes sound, it is made from the moving parts as they hit or rub against one another.  Since a moving pendulum is relying on gravity and its own weight for the arc movements, it doesn't have anything to rub against.
100345
go to http://www.howstuffworks.com/clock.htm and it will tell you everything you need to know.
1117824
Pendulums work like this...\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendulum\n\nNothing magical.  Just simple physics.
225581
see if this helps.....\n\n\n\nAnalysis of a simple gravity pendulum\n \nFigure 2. Force diagram of a simple gravity pendulum.To begin, we shall make three assumptions about the simple pendulum\n\nThe rod/string/cable on which the bob is swinging is massless and always remains taut; \nThe bob is a point mass; \nMotion occurs in a 2 dimensional plane, i.e. pendulum does not swing in and out of the page. \nConsider Figure 2. The blue arrow is the gravitational force acting on the bob, violet arrows are that same force resolved into components parallel and perpendicular to the bob's instantaneous motion, the motion along the red axis, which is always perpendicular to the cable/rod. Newton's second law\n\n \nwhere F is the force acting on mass m, causing it to accelerate at a meters per second2. Because the bob is constrained to move on the green circular arc, there is no need to consider any force other than the one responsible for instantaneous acceleration parallel to the known path, the short violet arrow in our case\n\n \n \nLinear acceleration a along the red axis can be related to the change in angle θ by the arc length formula\n\n \n \n \nThis, however, is not the acceleration we seek because the gravitational force on the bob causes a decrease in angle θ. One accounts for that by placing a negative sign in front of a, thus:\n\n \n \n \nFigure 3. Trigonometry of a simple gravity pendulum.This is the differential equation which, when solved for θ(t), will yield the motion of the pendulum. It can also be obtained via the conservation of mechanical energy principle: any given object which fell a vertical distance h starting from rest, would have acquired kinetic energy equal to that which it lost to the fall. In other words, gravitational potential energy is converted into kinetic energy. Change in potential energy is given by\n\n \nchange in kinetic energy (body started from rest) is given by\n\n \nSince no energy is lost, those two must be equal\n\n \n \nUsing the arc length formula above, this equation can be re-written in favor of \n\n \nbut what is h? It is the vertical distance the pendulum fell. Consider Figure 3. If the pendulum starts its swing from some initial angle θ0, then y0, the vertical distance from the screw, is given by\n\n \nsimilarly, for y1, we have\n\n \nthen h is the difference of the two\n\n \nsubstituting this into the equation for  gives\n\n \nThis equation is known as the first integral of motion, it gives the velocity in terms of the location and includes an integration constant related to the initial displacement (θ0). We can differentiate, by applying the chain rule, with respect to time to get the acceleration\n\n \n \n \nsame as obtained through force analysis.\n\n[edit]\nSmall angle approximation\nThe problem with the equations developed in the previous section is that they are unintegrable. To shed some light on the behavior of the pendulum we shall make another approximation. Namely, we restrict the motion of the pendulum to a relatively small amplitude, that is, relatively small θ. How small? Small enough that the following approximation is true within some desirable tolerance\n\n \nif and only if\n\n \nSubstituting this approximation into (1) yields\n\n \nSolution to this equation is a well-known, and quite expected, oscillatory function\n\n \nwhere θ0 is the semi-amplitude of the oscillation, that is the maximum angle between the rod of the pendulum and the vertical.\n\nThe term  is a pulsation, which is equal to ,\n\nwhere T0 is the period of a complete oscillation (outward and return).\n\nSince ,\n\nthe period of a complete oscillation can be easily found, and we have obtained Huygens's law:\n\n \n \n[edit]\nArbitrary-amplitude period\nFor amplitudes beyond the small angle approximation, one can compute the exact period by inverting equation (2)\n\n \nand integrating over one complete cycle,\n\n \nor twice the half-cycle\n\n \nor 4 times the quarter-cycle\n\n \nwhich
306356
You would be hurt more.  If you are in contact with the elevator, It would cushion and defray some of the impact force.  If you are in the air, it's just you and the ground......
107152
I love this question.\n\nI think if you could get the timing and length of steps right, it would go on as long as the escalator kept going.\n\nI don't think friction is a consideration because the escalator is continously adding energy.
598399
Yes.  The full coaster may go down faster, but would lose momentum at the next upswing.  An empty coaster would reach the top of the next hill without the hindrance of gravity.