No, not exactly. They jiggle and tremble and vibrate a lot, but
they always basically stay in very nearly the same place.
It's like if you're allowed to go anywhere you want in your jail cell,
you wouldn't exactly call that "moving about freely".
A force of 43.8 N is required to stretch the spring a distance of 15.5 cm = 0.155 m, so the spring constant <em>k</em> is
43.8 N = <em>k</em> (0.155 m) ==> <em>k</em> = (43.8 N) / (0.155 m) ≈ 283 N/m
The total work done on the spring to stretch it to 15.5 cm from equilibrium is
1/2 (283 N/m) (0.155 m)² ≈ 3.39 J
The total work needed to stretch the spring to 15.5 cm + 10.4 cm = 25.9 cm = 0.259 m from equilibrium would be
1/2 (283 N/m) (0.259 m)² ≈ 9.48 J
Then the additional work needed to stretch the spring 10.4 cm further is the difference, about 6.08 J.
True ..............................
