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The force exerted by a spring

Hang a spring vertically and measure the stretch of the spring as a function of mass added to the spring, when the system is in equilibrium. Do not exceed 250 g mass. Take 5 points. The diagram shows an unstretched spring, the spring stretched by one mass, m, and the spring stretched by twice that mass, 2m.

What do I mean by "stretch?" Think about it, then tell an instructor your interpretation. Don't go past this step without approval (or you may end up having to do it all over again!).

Your goal is to use Newton's Laws to find an expression for the force F of the spring in terms of the mass, m, hanging from the spring. The method: make a plot of the force of the spring versus the stretch on the supplied paper. Each person must make a graph.

  1. First decide what "force versus stretch" means. Which variable goes on the horizontal axis, and which on the vertical axis?
  2. Second, decide on the ranges of the variables, i.e. the maximum minus minimum value for each variable.
  3. Third, examine your graph paper and choose a scale for each axis. You should use more than half of each axis, but choose sensible scales (10 squares on paper = 1 cm, or 2 cm, or 5 cm; NOT 10 squares on paper = 3 cm, or 7 cm.)
  4. Fourth, make tick marks on the axes and label them with values. Also label the axes with the variable and the units. Give a meaningful title to your graph.
  5. Fifth, plot the data on your graph. Use a small dot surrounded by a circle or square or diamond, for each data point.
  6. Sixth, make a fit to your data. Your data should appear to be a straight line. Draw the line and determine its slope and intercept (both of which have units, by the way). On this graph, what does the slope tell you?

Sorry, we could not find this page | RIT CIS - Center for Imaging Science

Sorry, we could not find this page

We apologize, but the page you were looking for is not available. Most of our material is available from the menus above.

Last Modified: 2:01pm 10 Aug 11