IB Physics C1 Notes
This page contains our IB Physics notes for C1. By reading each one of these notes, you will fully cover the content for IB Physics 'Further simple harmonics'.
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SHM formulae
You need to be able to quantify the displacement, velocity, and acceleration and the energies. To fully understand how this occurs, let's first review how these are related. Remember that the phase difference between displacement and velocity is 90°, velocity and acceleration is 90°, and displacement and acceleration is 180° as shown below:
Since simple harmonic motion is sinusoidal motion, an alternative way to describe the displacement, velocity, and acceleration is via trigonometric functions. The basic format of these is:
- a sin bx
- a cos bx
Here, a is amplitude and b is the period coefficient, whose corresponding values are shown below:
| Amplitude (a) | Period coefficient (b) | |
|---|---|---|
| Displacement (x) | maximum displacement (x0) | angular frequency (ω) |
| Velocity (v) | maximum velocity (v0) = ωx0 | angular frequency (ω) |
| Acceleration (a) | maximum acceleration (a0) = ω2 x0 | angular frequency (ω) |
Substituting in these values, the formulae we get are:
No displacement at t = 0 | Positive displacement at t = 0 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Displacement (x) | |||
| Velocity (v) | |||
| Acceleration (a) | |||
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