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Physics: Why Kinetic Energy Needs To Swing

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Physics is involved in almost everything that we do in life. Over the Thanksgiving break, I took my niece to the park, as we were both swinging the swing set, I noticed that when swinging back and forth, the swing resembled a pendulum oscillating back and forth. I had three thoughts while swinging: what is the kinetic and potential energy it requires to swing; will my 3 year old niece swing faster than me, since she weighs less; and lastly is it possible to swing above the support bar of the swing.
According to Hyperphysics, the definition of kinetic of energy is: “energy of motion” (“Kinetic Energy”, 2013). The kinetic energy of an object is the energy it possesses because of its motion. The formula that represents kinetic energy equation …show more content…

Which is the same as saying, the higher the elevation the greater the kinetic energy will be. As mentioned before, kinetic energy of a swing can be described as the fast swinging motion going back and forth.
Looking at these equations I was also able to answer my previous question, does the weight of a person effect how fast someone will swing? The example above shows that speed does not depend of mass. An adult will have the same speed of a small child, when they are released from the same height. In the absence of friction, the velocity of an object falling under gravity does not depend on the mass of the object.
Lastly, is it possible to swing over the support bar of the swing set? Although, some will argue that they have in fact swung over the bar, ideally a regular person using their own power, on a regular swing set will not be able to swing over a support bar. After doing a great deal of research on this particular topic, I found a very thorough explanation, on Quroa, that explained why this would be an impossible task. In order to make it over the bar, the centripetal acceleration at the top of the swing would need to be greater than the acceleration due to gravity. Because you change kinetic energy to potential energy as you go from the “front-end” to the “back-end” of the swinging motion, you lose

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