Question

discuss how the law of conservation of energy explains the motion of the pendulum.

Answer 1

Oscillation of simple pendulum with no friction, mechanical energy is conserved. Total mechanical energy is a combination of kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy. As the pendulum swings back and forth, there is a constant exchange between kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy while sum of both remains constant. When pendulum starts from top with zero kinetic energy and maximum potential energy, its kinetic energy increases while potential energy decreases upto the bottom of swing then from bottom to top kinetic energy decreases and potential energy increases so on and so forth.