Chapter 8

Oscillations

In this chapter, we’ll concentrate on a kind of periodic motion that’s
straightforward and that, fortunately, actually describes many real-life systems.
This type of motion is called simple harmonic motion. Many of the examples of
this that you’ll see on the SAT Physics Subject Test involve a block that’s
oscillating on the end of a spring. Here we’ll learn about this simple system, and
we can apply our knowledge to many other oscillating systems.