Our second goal today is to come up with a single value, the spring constant, that characterizes a particular spring. This number should tell you how much force is required to keep a spring stretched/compressed a particular amount if you know the distance it is stretched/compressed.

Find the spring constant for one or more springs.

Questions to consider include:

• Can you find the spring constant from the graph you drew previously?
• Does the spring constant depend on what planet you're on?
• If you cut a spring in half does its spring constant change? If so, how?
• If you connect two springs to an object how is the effective spring constant of the combination of springs related to the spring constants of the individual springs?

  Resources to investigate these questions include:

  1. The various springs and spring scales we have to work with
  2. The Vernier software, such as by using a force sensor to measure force applied
  3. The "Mass and Spring" simulation from the Phet simulation site