Question

another spring stretches 4 cm when a load of 10 n is suspended from it. how much will the spring stretch if an identical spring also supports the load as shown in (a) and (b)? (neglect the weights of the springs.)

Answer 1

When two identical springs are connected in parallel and a load is applied, each spring will stretch 2 cm.

How to find stretch?

When two identical springs are connected in parallel and a load is applied, the springs share the load equally. This means that each spring will support half of the load, or 5 N.

Since each spring stretches 4 cm when a load of 10 N is suspended from it, each spring will stretch 2 cm when a load of 5 N is suspended from it.

Therefore, when two identical springs are connected in parallel and a load is applied, each spring will stretch 2 cm.