Abstract
The International Young Physicists' Tournament (IYPT) is a worldwide, annual competition for high school students. This paper is adapted from the winning solution to Problem 14, Magnetic Spring, as presented in the final round of the 23rd IYPT in Vienna, Austria. Two magnets were arranged on top of each other on a common axis. One was fixed, while the other could move vertically. Various parameters of interest were investigated, including the effective gravitational acceleration, the strength, size, mass and geometry of the magnets, and damping of the oscillations. Despite its simplicity, this setup yielded a number of interesting and unexpected relations. The first stage of the investigation was concerned only with the undamped oscillations of small amplitudes, and the period of small amplitude oscillations was found to be dependent only on the eighth root of important magnet properties such as its strength and mass. The second stage sought to investigate more general oscillations. A numerical model which took into account magnet size, magnet geometry and damping effects was developed to model the general oscillations. Air resistance and friction were found to be significant sources of damping, while eddy currents were negligible.
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