• About the Nonlinear Oscillations
• Preface
• How to Use the Software

The package NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS includes a set of highly interactive programs that allow you to observe the simulations of simple nonlinear mechanical oscillatory systems. You can obtain time-dependent graphs of the variables that describe the simulated system, phase diagrams and graphs of energy transformations. Graphs and diagrams appear on the screen simultaneously with the motion display. The suggested experiments have been designed to be plain and obvious. They provide the capability of observing repeatedly and thoroughly the fine details of phenomena that usually escape notice during direct observation. You can widely modify parameters of the investigated physical systems and conditions of the experiments. The graphic presentation of the results allows you to see and easily understand large amounts of information. The simulations bring to life many abstract concepts related to the physics of oscillations and can lead to considerable insight into the complex behavior exhibited by nonlinear systems.

The package NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS can be helpful to a wide range of university students. The programs provide the instructor with powerful demonstration tools to accompany lectures in general physics and the theory of oscillations. With these programs, the students have an opportunity to perform interesting mini-research physics projects on their own.

In the package NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS the following mechanical systems are simulated:

• Oscillations and Rotations of a Rigid Pendulum
• Rigid Pendulum Driven by a Sinusoidal Force
• Pendulum Driven by a Square-wave Force
• Pendulum with the Horizontally Driven Pivot
• Pendulum with the Vertically Driven Pivot
• Rigid Pendulum with Modulated Length
• Combined Pendulum with Spring and Gravity

COMPUTER SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Your hardware configuration should be any PC running under operating system Windows 98 or higher (Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP). A high resolution screen mode (1024 x 768 or higher) is recommended. Printer is optional.

All programs of the package are supplied with several sets of predefined examples illustrating many interesting modes of the simulated system behavior. To open the list of examples, click on the button "Demo Examples" on the title screen, or on the menu item "Examples" which can be found in the upper line of any screen, or in the pop-up menu called by clicking the right mouse button. We recommend to use these examples at first acquaintance with the programs. Additional background material explaining the simulated physical systems and different modes of their behavior can be found in text documents and articles (pdf files) that supplement almost all programs of the package. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader program to read papers and other text documents of the package.

The project NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS is not yet finalized: simulations of some other nonlinear systems will be added in the future versions, as well as some new or improved papers with theoretical investigations of the simulated systems.

As a suitable prerequisite for successful work with the package NONLINEAR OSCILLATIONS, we recommend the new edition of the award-winning educational software PHYSICS OF OSCILLATIONS published by Physics Academic Software, American Institute of Physics. The software includes a set of highly interactive programs that allow you to observe the simulations of simple (mostly linear) mechanical oscillatory systems. The package PHYSICS OF OSCILLATIONS is supplied with a 160-page User’s Manual that gives a theoretical background for the simulated mechanical systems and suggests students' activities. The manual contains hundreds of problems and exercises. A 95-page Instructor’s Guide gives details of their solutions.

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