A theatre technician suspends a scenery panel from a vertical spring. The panel has a mass of 1.50 kg and is attached using two mounting brackets, each with a mass of 0.50 kg.
The spring must extend by no more than 50 mm so that the panel remains above a marked position. Each available spring obeys Hooke's law for this load.
| Spring | Spring constant in N/m\mathrm{N/m}N/m |
|---|---|
| P | 50 |
| Q | 300 |
| R | 400 |
| S | 500 |
The gravitational field strength is 10 N/kg.
What is the spring constant of the spring that the technician should use?
50 N/m50\ \mathrm{N/m}50 N/m
400 N/m400\ \mathrm{N/m}400 N/m
500 N/m500\ \mathrm{N/m}500 N/m
300 N/m300\ \mathrm{N/m}300 N/m
102 exam-style questions on Edexcel GCSE Physics 15.1 Forces and springs, covering 15.1.1 Elastic and inelastic distortion, 15.1.2 The spring constant, 15.1.3 Work done in stretching a spring, and 15.1.4 Linear and non-linear force–extension. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.