Chapter 10: Q. 60 (page 259)
A clever engineer designs a 鈥渟prong鈥 that obey the force law ,where is the equilibrium position of the end of the sprong and q is the sprong constant. For simplicity, we鈥檒l let . Then .
a. What are the units of q?
b. Find an expression for the potential energy of a stretched or compressed sprong.
c. A sprong-loaded toy gun shoots a plastic ball. What is the launch speed if the sprong constant is , with the units you found in part a, and the sprong is compressed ? Assume the barrel is frictionless.