On the base of the toy are three other magnets which can be moved freely about the surface. These magnets may also be flipped over to the other side, causing an attractive or repellent force acting on the pendulum.

When the pendulum is pushed and released, it tends to swing in an extremely chaotic manner. Since the force exerted by each magnet falls off in correspondence with the cube of the distance (see the math section), the pendulum experiences unpredictable forces as it moves through the magnetic fields from the base.

In chaos theory, tiny changes in the initial conditions of a problem may yield dramatically different results at run-time. An analogy is the well-known "butterfly effect", described as a conundrum where a butterfly flapping its wings in China today can change the weather in California next week. In this case, the position of the pendulum after a certain amount of time will be completely unpredictable, but can still be demonstrated in a model.

My goal in the final project was to create a reasonable model of the magnetic pendulum that would simulate the physical laws that operate on it.

		Mathematical solution
		Main magnets page