Euler (1742)

Abstract

Sometime before 1739, Euler had attempted unsuccessfully to understand the oscillations of the linked compound pendulum. He solved the problem in 1740 in correspondence with Daniel Bernoulli who had suggested to him the problem of a rigid body hanging from a string.¹ In August of 1742, Euler presented the St. Petersburg Academy with a long pedagogical paper² on the harmonic oscillations of the linked compound pendulum and its related (limiting) cases of a rigid body hanging from a string or from a (massive, flexible) chain. This paper appeared in 1751 in the volume for the years 1741/3. In spite of the fact that some effort was required for this work, the method used is contained in Euler’s paper of 1735 on the vibrating rod (Chapter 10). That is, the pendulum condition is used as usual but converted to the balancing of torques (about the points of flexure).³