Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/iii/paper-316/1/iv/solution

At , torque balance gives
The magnitude of the right-hand side must not exceed one. This fixes the dissipative offset of the resonant-argument libration centre.
For , put . The two torque-balanced phases are and , modulo . In the usual weak-perturbation pendulum approximation, and . Restoring libration thus selects , giving
It approaches when drag is weak compared with resonant torque. For , the corresponding restoring branch has and approaches zero. The sine equation is the direct result independent of this leading-order stability approximation.

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