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curator:Tim Erickson
Hanging Slinky Length

The idea is that we hang a slinky vertically and measure its length. We vary the number of coils that we allow to hang. A slinky is a spring, right? In this situation, the key difference between our slinky and a typical physics-book spring is that the slinky is not massless.

length is the length in centimeters. coils is the number of coils.

Even without looking at the photo, what do you expect the hanging slinky to look like? Will it be the same from top to bottom? More bunched up at the top? More bunched up at the bottom? Why?

How does the length of this slinky depend on the number of coils? This turns out to be a subtle question! A good start is to look at the data with Fathom and see, approximately, how they relate. This may be good enough.

These data were painstakingly taken by Bryan Cooley.

length coils
0.8
5
1.6
10
3.3
15
6.1
20
10.3
25
15.5
30
21.9
35
29.8
40
39
45
49.3
50
60.3
55
72.1
60
85.1
65
99.3
70
115
75

<text form of the data>

©2003 eeps media
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Last updated 21 January 2003
supported by NSF award DMI-0216656