Hi Laura
First thing first, there are 4 state variables which can be defined (on a piece of paper) by
x(t) = z(1)
x'(t) = z(2)
y(t) = z(3)
y'(t) = z(4)
And then type out the 4 first-order differential equations in terms of z(1), z(2), z(3), z(4) on the RHS in MATLAB:
dzdt(1) = z(2); % this is x'
dzdt(2) = ... ; % this is x"
dzdt(3) = z(4); % this is y'
dzdt(4) = ... ; % this is y"
If you have known about the existence of ode45 solver, can you follow the examples to type out the basic code for us to run it so that you learn along the way as we troubleshoot your code?
86400 seconds is 1 day. The object in length l is making a revolution in a day on Earth (because there is g). And ϕ = 49° implies that the object is revolving at a fixed relative orientation.
