Preset

Show and View

Show
View
Speed1×

Rig setup

Fold
Span8
Pull15°

Beads

Paint
Shape
Size4
Color
Longest pendulum, 51 swings in 2 min 14 sThe other bobs, one extra swing each step, up to 59Magnet poles that hold the releaseForty-eight pendulums hang in a ring, three identical sets of sixteen, after the machine in Science to All's Galileo's Ring II. Lengths follow the small-angle law, so in 2 min 14 s the longest, 1.71 m, swings 51 times and the shortest, 1.28 m, swings 59. The same ladder repeats three times, and the pattern is unchanged by a third of a turn. Fold, span and pull retune that ladder. Drift steps fold, span and pull every few seconds. Beads hides the rig, the magnets and the strings. Overhead looks straight down. Moving paints each bead by how far it has swung out. Fixed gives every bead the colour of its place in the set, and that colour stays put as it swings. The colour combinations, other than white and black and white, are from Sanzo Wada, A Dictionary of Color Combinations.