  A pedagogically instructive experimental procedure is suggested for
distinguishing between different damping terms in a weakly damped oscillator,
which highclights the connection between non-linear damping and
initial-amplitude dependence. The most common damping terms such as contact
friction, air resistance, viscous drag, and electromagnetic damping have
velocity dependences of the form constant, v, or v^2. The corresponding energy
dependences of the form \sqrt{E}, E, or E\sqrt{E} in the energy loss equation
give rise to characteristic dependence of the amplitude decay slope on the
initial amplitude.
