To answer the questions below, it may be useful to think of your friend's car driving on a level road on the surface of the Earth, or maybe in space accelerating upwards at 9.8 m/s2 (or some other rate of acceleration, depending on the question).
1) Your friend starts out by hanging is fuzzy dice from a spring. On the surface of the Earth, he finds the length of the spring to be 8.4 cm. With his car drifting in space he finds the length of the spring to be 3.5 cm. What would be the length of the spring in a situation, if the car were accelerating upward at a rate of 9.8 m/s2?
2) What would be the length of the spring in a situation if the car were accelerating upward at a rate of 12.4 m/s2?
3)What would be the length of the spring in a situation if the car were accelerating upward at a rate of 6.6 m/s2?
Note for clarification: Answer all 3 questions since they correspond with each other. and make sure to "bold" the answers somehow. Also just for heads up #1 is NOT 13.3 cm and #2 is NOT 14.6 cm and #3 is not 11.7 cm they were incorrect so don't right those as the answers please. Furthermore, if your answer is wrong then be able to respond back quickly.
the extension of the spring is proportional to the weight of the dice
the weight of the dice is proportional to the acceleration
normal gravitational acceleration (Earth, 9.8 m/s^2)
... stretches the spring (8.4 cm - 3.5 cm) or 4.9 cm
... so each m/s^2 of acceleration results in 0.5 cm of spring stretch
all three questions use upward acceleration
... so the Earth's g is added to find the total acceleration
1. the total acceleration is 2g , so the stretch is 9.8 cm
... total spring length is ... 3.5 cm + 9.8 cm
yes, I read the clarification
... maybe the questions themselves need clarification
in space, there is no up or down
... the presence of a gravitational field defines up/down