The Chaos of a Double Pendulum Explained
Watch two nearly identical double pendulums rapidly diverge and discover why tiny differences make chaotic systems difficult to predict.
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Transcript
Have you ever watched a playground swing and known exactly where it will be in the next second? Picture a heavy weight, mass one, hanging by a rod of length one, swinging smoothly back and forth. Now attach a second identical rod and weight to the bottom creating a double pendulum with length two, mass 2 and angle theta 2. Let us watch what happens when we set two double pendulums side by side with almost identical starting angles.
At first, both paths match within seconds. However, their motions violently diverge into total chaos. If you plot the angle of the bottom weight over time, you see a jagged, erratic line that never repeats its pattern. Microscopic differences lead to radically different futures.
The double pendulum remains entirely impossible to predict forever. Generate your own educational videos for free at eduvids. app. app.
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