What Sets the Period: It’s the Hardware, Not the Swing

You'll learnthat a spring oscillator's period depends on mass and stiffness, never on amplitude.

Two identical spring-blocks, one pulled twice as far — which one gets back to the middle first? The answer is written into T = 2π√(m/k): the period rises with mass, falls with stiffness, and never once asks how far you pulled.

8 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · v2

SPRING LAB

Before you start

What you're looking at

Two identical spring-blocks side by side, the top pulled to amplitude A and the bottom to 2A.

The question

Released together, which block reaches the middle (x = 0) first?

Watch for

Both blocks crossing equilibrium at the same instant, even though one was pulled twice as far.

What the symbols mean

k is spring stiffness, m is block mass; both blocks share the same m and k; x = 0 is equilibrium.

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