Read · 1 min
Is damping fundamental? In many cases, the answer is yes. A special case is a charge, such as an electron. An oscillating charge will emit electromagnetic waves, such as radio waves. Radio waves carry energy away from the oscillator, which slows it down. This is called radiation damping. This is the primary way that electrons in atoms and vibrating molecules slow down, and that a hot object (like the sun) emits light as heat.
An even more unusual case is something called gravitational waves. When two massive objects accelerate, they can emit waves in spacetime predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Two objects connected by a spring should emit gravitational waves and damp. However, this effect is far too small to be observed on Earth! Despite much experimental effort, gravitational waves have never been directly observed. However, astronomers have seen that very heavy objects orbiting each other slow down due to this phenomenon (a discovery which led to the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics).