1. A Single Spring & Mass Oscillator 1.1. Description of the Model
Before we discuss the coupled oscillators, we will review the simple problem of a single spring and mass oscillator. This system consists of a single mass attached to a spring, and allowed to slide on a horizontal surface. A picture of this can be seen in Figure 1. For simplicity, we will ignore any damping forces acting on the mass, such as air resistance, or friction. With these assumptions, we need only consider the force that the spring exerts on the mass. We will assume that the spring obeys Hooke’s law, and thus exerts a linear restoring force on the mass. This means that when the mass is displaced by a distance ∆x from its