A conic pendulum of variable length analysed by wavelets

Mathematics and Physics are disciplines interconnected for teaching purposes. Function and signal analysis play a key role in many scientific curricula. In particular, Wavelet Transform (WT) is increasingly applied to detect information on time dependent periodicities present in a signal. In this framework, in dealing with WT analysis within university courses it is often advantageous to adopt an integrated mathematical and physical approach. In this paper, we report the results obtained by the application of WT analysis to the motion of a very easy to realize system, i.e., a variable length conic pendulum. It is shown how WT allows to get information, in a straghtforward way, on the time evolution of the registered signal frequency content.