Hooke’s Law Illinois Wesleyan University（胡克定律伊利诺斯州卫斯理大学）.pdfVIP

Name: Partner(s): Date: Hooke’s Law 1. Purpos e: The primary purpose of the lab is to study Hooke’s Law and simple harmonic motion by studying the behavior of a mass on a spring. Your goal will be to extract a measure of the stiffness of one particular spring. 2. Theory The shape of a body will distort when a force is applied to it. Bodies which are “elastic” distort by compression or tension, and return to their original, or equilibrium, position when the distorting force is removed (unless the distorting force exceeds the elastic limit of the material). Hookes Law states that if the distortion of an elastic body is not too large, the force tending to restore the body to equilibrium is proportional to the displacement of the body from equilibrium. Stated mathematically: r r F = - k x (1) r where F is a restoring force, k is a constant of proportionality and x is the distance the object has been displaced from its equilibrium position. The minus sign signifies that the restoring force acts in the opposite direction to the displacement of the body from the equilibrium position. If a body, which obeys Hooke’s Law, is displaced from equilibrium and released, the body will undergo “simple harmonic motion”. Many systems, such as water waves, sound waves, ac circuits and atoms in a molecule, exhibit this type of motion. A particularly easy example to study is a massive object on a spr