A translation of G.W. Krafft's "On a new class of oscillations"

Abstract

This is a translation from Latin of 'De novo oscillationum genere', which was motivated by Krafft's accidental observation of a suspended clock setting itself in constant motion as a pendulum. This publication, in turn, motivated Euler to write 'De novo genere oscillationum', in which Euler derived for the first time, the differential equation for the (undamped) simple harmonic oscillator under harmonic excitation.