Please help me people!?

Question

I've been given a Science assignment to experiment whether or not Hooke's Law is accurate. All we did was like stretch a spring or something. I'm wondering if anyone has had to do this before and I need to write an analysis and we have to include these dot points :

*talk about spring

*did it have kinks? how many? (we had one kink that was there before we started)

*What was the spring made out of?

*Mention the surface it was on

*Talk about spring scale (?!)

*Was it easy to read

PLEEEAAASSSE ANSWER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Answer 1

I have never done this experiment, but I do know something about Hooke's Law.

First of all, you must know that Hooke's Law is used to equate elasticity.

Remember that Hooke's Law states F = -kx, where

F is the restoring force exerted by the material (in newtons)

k is the force constant (newtons per meter)

and x is the units moved.

k is negative because the restoring force (F) must always act in opposite of the units x had moved.

You used a spring in your experiment because that is probably the easiest experiment to test elasticity and give you some quality results.

It is alright that your spring had kinks in it already because if it did not, you would not really be able to see how far the spring stretched when the force was applied to it.

I am not sure what your spring was made of, but I can fairly confidently say that it was probably made of some sort of metal.

Your teacher most likely set the spring on a lab table or on the floor to show your class how the experiment worked.  In your disscussion just mention that the surface was hard, or solid, or something of that nature.

The spring scale that your teacher used was probably a newton scale because F (restoring force) is measured in Newtons.  One newton = the force required to cause a sample mass of 1 kg of weight to accelerate (speed up) to 1 m/s^2, without any other forces acting on it.  

Your spring scale most likely was hooked onto the spring, which was probably attached to something, and then pulled on, causing the spring to uncurl or stretch.  

The scale would have been easy to read as long as one pulled on it slowly and once the spring had stretched to its full capacity, the one measuring had taken the final reading.

I have included a couple of helpful websites on the matter.