Higher accurate approximate solutions for the simple pendulum in terms of elementary functions

Abstract

A closed-form approximate expression for the solution of a simple pendulum in terms of elementary functions is obtained. To do this, the exact expression for the maximum tension of the string of the pendulum is first considered and a trial approximate solution depending on some parameters is used, which is substituted in the tension equation. We obtain the parameters for the approximate by means of a term-by-term comparison of the power series expansion for the approximate maximum tension with the corresponding series for the exact one. We believe that this letter may be a suitable and fruitful exercise for teaching and better understanding nonlinear oscillations of a simple pendulum in undergraduate courses on classical mechanics.