Mistake Master
Mistake Master · AP Physics 1 · Unit 2 · Step-Through Animation
The Spring Always Pulls You Home
You'll learnthat a spring force always points back to equilibrium and grows with displacement.
Stretch it, squash it, let it go — the force never stops pointing back at equilibrium, and it grows in exact proportion to how far you've strayed. Watch the arrow, then work the numbers at the turning point where most answers go wrong.
SPRING LAB
Before you start
What you're looking at
A 2 kg block on a frictionless track, tied to a wall by a spring and held 0.2 m past its relaxed length.
The question
What force does the spring answer with, and where does that force peak and vanish as it oscillates?
Watch for
Notice the dashed equilibrium line first; every spring-force arrow you see points back toward it.
What the symbols mean
The dashed line marks the relaxed length; the emerald arrow is the spring force, riding below the blue velocity arrow.
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