Chaotic Pendulum


About

A damped driven pendulum is a chaotic system. In a chaotic system the future behavior is highly dependent on the exact value of the initial conditions. A tiny change in initial conditions can cause huge changes after a short period of time.

Click the "Sim" tab to access parameters such as: drive amplitude, frequency, mass, gravity, and damping. You can drag the pendulum with your mouse to change the starting position.

The buttons below set parameters so the simulation is either in a loop or in a chaotic state; the drive amplitude is different in each case and shown in parenthesis. It takes around a minute to settle into a loop.