The Ring Pendulum. A Physics Exploration of Diameter and Time Period

Document from the year 2016 in the subject Physics - Applied physics, grade: A, , course: IB Physics HL, language: English, abstract: Research and results on the interdependence between time taken for one oscillation of amusement park rides (like the 'Pirate ship') and their diameter, by studying the ring pendulum. In the course of my day to day life, I have watched many objects and systems in oscillatory motion and have been contemplating about them almost every single day. One day, as I sat on my chair, looking at the ring in my hand oscillate, I wondered why its time period was so fast. I asked myself, 'Does it depend on the size of the ring?' Being an avid fan of amusement park rides, I was then compelled to relate it to thrilling rides like Disk'O and Pirate Ship. Even though the shape was not the same, my interest insisted me to make the observations for the same. What I asked myself turned out to be true. I saw that the ring being smaller in size takes lesser time and the amusement park rides being greater in size took longer time. My qualitative observations forced me to find the quantitative results. My research question thus asks 'To what extent does the diameter of the ring pendulum affect the time taken to complete one oscillation at constant linear mass density?'