Eric L. Strobel (fyzycyst_at_home.com) wrote:
> Well, picture this -- you are pushing a child on a swing. You can push
> every time the kid comes back to you, or you can push every OTHER time, or
> every THIRD time. With the latter two, you're forcing the system at a
> harmonic frequency below the base (swing's) frequency.
In this case, one system (me) oscillating at a frequency f is causing
another system (the swing) to oscillate at 2f or 3f. Nothing mysterious
about that, but I fail to see how this analogy relates to harmonics
(_components_ of a _single_ oscillation) at all. At any case, calling the
pushing frequency the harmonic (rather than the frequency of the swing,
which to me at least would make slightly more sense) seems to be arbitrary.
- Michael
Michael J. Hussmann
E-mail: michael_at_michael-hussmann.de
WWW: http://michael-hussmann.de
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