OSCILLATION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Oscillation

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/ˌɑsəlˈeɪʃən/ Listen

noun

Oscillation n.

The act of oscillating; a swinging or moving backward and forward, like a pendulum; vibration.

Fluctuation; variation; change back and forth. "His mind oscillated, undoubtedly; but the extreme points of the oscillation were not very remote."

Axis of oscillation, Center of oscillation. See under Axis, and Center.

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Etymology of 'Oscillation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Oscillation" Quotes from Famous Books

... Man helped to produce alike the anarchy of the first French Revolution and the remedial despotism of the Jacobins and their successor Napoleon; and the oscillation between under-government and over-government, between individualism and socialism has continued to this day. Each coincides with obvious human interests: the blessed in possession prefer a policy of laissez ...

— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard

... kinetic and potential energy are complementary to one another, the sum-total of the two combined always remaining the same in any cycle of work, according to the principle of the conservation of energy. We get a good example of this oscillation from kinetic to potential, and vice versa, in the planetary system. When the earth is farthest from the sun, its velocity, and consequently its kinetic energy, is at its lowest point; but there the potential energy is at its greatest. ...

— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper

... nothing. You can see and hear the spark indeed—but that is a mere secondary disturbance we can for the present ignore—I do not mean any secondary disturbance. I mean the true ethereal waves emitted by the electric oscillation going on in the neighborhood of this recoiling dielectric. You pull aside the prong of a tuning fork and let it go; vibration follows and sound is produced. You charge a Leyden jar and let it discharge; vibration ...

— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... it is now by universal suffrage, every man who does his duty must exercise political functions. And, if the evils which are inseparable from the good of political liberty are to be checked, if the perpetual oscillation of nations between anarchy and despotism is to be replaced by the steady march of self-restraining freedom; it will be because men will gradually bring themselves to deal with political, as they now deal with scientifical ...

— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... one of great complexity, another Japanese earthquake, that of June 20th, 1894, was unusually simple in character. The movement at Tokio consisted of one very prominent oscillation with a total range of 73 mm. or 2.9 inches in the direction S. 70 W.; the vibrations which preceded and followed it being comparatively small. Most, if not all, of the damage caused by the earthquake must have been due to this ...

— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison

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