Figure 16.21 shows the displacement of a harmonic oscillator for different amounts of damping. (The net force is smaller in both directions.) If there is very large damping, the system does not even oscillate-it slowly moves toward equilibrium.
If you gradually increase the amount of damping in a system, the period and frequency begin to be affected, because damping opposes and hence slows the back and forth motion. Figure 16.20 In this graph of displacement versus time for a harmonic oscillator with a small amount of damping, the amplitude slowly decreases, but the period and frequency are nearly the same as if the system were completely undamped.
