Cracking the SAT Physics Subject Test

SHM in Terms of Energy Another way to describe an oscillating block’s motion is in terms of energy transfers. A stretched or com ...

A block of mass m = 0.2 kg oscillates on a spring whose force constant k is 500 N/m. The amplitude of the oscillations is 4.0 c ...

Here’s How to Crack It First let’s get an expression for the maximum elastic potential energy of the system, which occurs when x ...

force constant k = 200 N/m. The block is at rest at its equilibrium position. An impulsive force acts on the block, giving it an ...

Because Fs varies as the object moves, the work done by or against the spring cannot be written as Fd cosθ As with gravity, we m ...

Spring-Block Summary We can summarize the dynamics of oscillations as follows: This table applies to springs, pendulums, and wav ...

THE KINEMATICS OF SHM Now that we’ve explored the dynamics of the block’s oscillations in terms of force and energy, let’s talk ...

Here’s How to Crack It The period is defined as the time required for one full cycle. Moving from one end of the oscillation reg ...

Let’s analyze these equations. Suppose we had a small mass on a very stiff spring; then we would expect that this strong spring ...

In simple harmonic motion, both the frequency and the period are independent of the amplitude. For each of the following arrang ...

force exerted by the springs would be F 1 + F 2 = −k 1 x + −k 2 x = −(k 1 + k 2 )x Since Feff = −(k 1 + k 2 )x, we see that keff ...

Therefore ...

(d) If the two springs have the same force constant, that is, if k 1 = k 2 = k, then in the first two cases, the pairs of spring ...

THE SPRING–BLOCK OSCILLATOR: VERTICAL MOTION So far we’ve looked at a block sliding back and forth on a horizontal table, but th ...

...

Another Approach You can use a force diagram to map out the same situation. As you can see, the net force in this case is zero, ...

account for the stretched distance. The net force on the block is F = k(d + y) − mg but this equation becomes F = ky because kd ...

Since the amplitude of the motion is 2.0 cm, the spring is stretched a maximum of 5 cm + 2.0 cm = 7 cm when the block is at the ...

PENDULUMS You may see a question about pendulums on the SAT Physics Subject Test, so we’ll cover them in this chapter. A simple ...

Although the displacement of the pendulum is measured by the angle that it makes with the vertical, instead of by its linear dis ...