Lassis Boukari

Kristin Cartwright
Math 1060
Reflection of project
The mass-spring
According to Wikipedia, the effective mass of the spring in a spring-mass system when
using an ideal spring of uniform linear density is 1/3 of the mass of the spring and is independent
of the direction of the spring-mass system (horizontal, vertical and oblique systems all have the
same effective mass). This is because external acceleration does not affect the period of motion
around the equilibrium point. Spring is an important object in the everyday life. It is in most of
supplies that we use why it is important for us to know how that works and meaning of a period,
a frequency, amplitude.
Like the figure 1 shown below, a vibrating object is wiggling about a fixed position. A
vibration object is moving over the same path over the course of time. Its motion repeats itself
over and over again. If it were not for damping, the vibrations would endure forever. The mass
on the spring not only repeats the same motion, it does so in a regular fashion. The time it takes
to complete one back and forth cycle is always the same amount of time. Determine the time
period of a mass-spring system suspended vertically and hence show that time period is directly
proportional to mass of the object. At point, we have a time for the mass to complete a cycle, and
a maximum displacement of the mass above (or below) the resting position. We call these two
measurable quantities period and amplitude. Frequency is another quantity that can be used to
quantitatively describe the motion of a object is periodic motion. The frequency is defined as the
number of complete cycles occurring per period of time. Since the standard metric unit of time is
the second, frequency has units of cycles/second. The unit cycles/second is equivalent to the unit
Hertz.
Take a moment to reflect about what quantities on the graph of fig. 2 might be important
in understanding the mathematical description of a mass on a spring. I recognize the sketch of
this graph from experiences in Math 1060 class. The graph has the shape as sines function.

Fig 1: Modeling the

Motion of a Spring

Fig 2: The Sinusoidal Nature of a

Vibration of motion of a spring of
fig 1

The position of the mass is a function of the sine of the time. We can apply trigonometry to the
spring for understanding the concept of mass-spring system.
In physics, frequency is used with the same meaning. As an example, consider the
periodic motion of the moon in orbit about the earth. The moon moves very fast. Its orbit is
highly infrequent. It moves through space with a speed of about 1000 m/s (the Physics
Clamroom). The spring uses for many items such as piano, car, for medical some supplies, brief
the frequency, or period is a terminology used in many field. Why a trigonometry can be applied
to the real world to understand the mechanism and the feature of the example listed above.
Taking this class let me understand more how mass-spring system works and the phenomenon
rhythmic of the world.