Find the displacement of a simple harmonic oscillator at which its PE is half of the maximum energy of the oscillator.
Let us consider an oscillator viz. at ,
displacement = x from its mean position,
Mass = m
Force constant of oscillator,
Thus,
At x = A, when K.E. = 0, P.E. will be maximum & it will be the total energy of the oscillator
At displacement ‘x’,
Thus,
=
&
Thus, when displacement = amplitude from mean position, P.E. will be half of the total energy.