-- Posted by Yanickbun at 3:42 am on Feb. 5, 2007 when doing an experiment in physics in 10th standard, why do we say SIMPLE pendulum experiment instead of pendulum experiment?? why it is called "simple pendulum"? -- Posted by Link01 at 3:43 am on Feb. 5, 2007 because it ment to be easy -- Posted by libertine at 8:48 am on Feb. 5, 2007 Pendulum calculations often include things like imaginary and complex numbers, and I'm guessing if you haven't covered them, you'll do a simpler form of the calculations. -- Posted by norock at 2:42 pm on Feb. 5, 2007 also, i assume that you aren't taking into consideration air resistance, or the weight of the string, or the friction in the area where it was tied down, or the natural elasticity of both the string and the area to which it is anchored to... there are A LOT more factors which may be studied in that experiment, you, however, are only using the basic parts. -- Posted by AtomicCactus at 4:06 pm on Feb. 5, 2007 The simple pendulum is just your garden variety weight attached to a string, with the other end of the string attached to a certain fixed point. On the contrary, there's the compound pendulum (also called double or coupled pendulum), which has one weight attached to another weight attached to a fixed point.  Google it up for a picture.