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The Swinging Atwood’s

Machine
Atwood’s Machine is a classic device constructed by George Atwood in the eighteenth
century in order to measure the gravitational acceleration g: two masses are attached
to either end of a (massless) string which is passed over a (frictionless) pulley. When
the two masses are slightly unequal, the heavier mass falls in a slowed-down free fall
motion, which allows g to be measured using a clockwork timing device. The
Swinging Atwood’s Machine (SAM) was introduced (and actually built as a lab
experiment) by Tufillaro et al (1984):

r
q

Here, one of the masses, m, is constrained to swing on a (frictionless) vertical plane—


suppose that the string passes through a hole in the planar surface, with frictionless
contact, and that the string is long enough so that the counter-mass, M, never strikes
the pulley. SAM’s simplicity of construction—its Hamiltonian is just

pr2 p2 M
H= + θ 2 + mgr ( µ − cosθ ) µ=
2m(1 + µ ) 2mr m

belies its very complex dynamical behaviour when M > m , including complicated
families of periodic motions, since a dynamical equilibrium can be achieved by the
centrifugal force on the swinging mass counterbalancing the free-fall pull of M.

In one set of activities devised for the Dynamics course at Imperial College, the
students are invited to get “a feel” for nonlinear dynamical system behaviour by
exploring some of the richness of SAM’s dynamics. They are also invited to check on
the (remarkable) existence of a second conserved quantity of the motion for the (so far
as is known) unique parameter value of m = 3:

pθ  θ pθ θ θ θ
J=  pr cos − 2 sin  + mgr 2 sin cos 2
4m  2 r 2 2 2

1
Hence, for m = 3 the SAM system is “integrable” and its motions are completely
ordered. This provides a good link with the course lectures, where the principles
behind integrability, and the methods by which a dynamical system may be analysed
for this property, are discussed.

It is easy enough to check symbolically that J is conserved when m = 3 using


Mathematica. It is also interesting to examine a few Trajectories and to use the toolkit
function CheckQuantity to test whether the value of the expression J is conserved
or not for the (numerical) Trajectories (here, m = 1 and g = 10):

traj299 = MakeTrajectory@SAMeqns@2.99D,
8r@0D == 1.0, q@0D == p … 2, pr@0D == 10.0, pq@0D == 0.0<, 8r, q, pr, pq<,
8t, 30<, MaxSteps -> 3000D;

etc.
mu=2.99 mu=3.00 mu=3.01
1 1 1
0.5 0.5 0.5
-1 -0.5 0.5 1 -1 -0.5 0.5 1 -1 -0.5 0.5 1
-0.5 -0.5 -0.5
-1 -1 -1
-1.5 -1.5 -1.5
-2 -2

q 2 q 1 i q 2 pq SinA q E y
2
Jnum = 10 r2 CosB F SinB F + pq pr CosB F -
2 2 4 2 r
k {
CheckQuantity[traj299, Jnum]
{3.53553, 3.53554, ø2479ù, 3.77704}
CheckQuantity[traj300, Jnum]
{3.53553, 3.53553, ø2479ù, 3.535}
J

3.8

3.7 mu=2.99

3.6

3.5 mu=3.00

3.4
mu=3.01
3.3

500 1000 1500 2000 2500

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