Work done by a spring


Description

A box moves along a horizontal frictionless surface, and is attached to a spring (at x=0, the red mark, the spring is unstretched). The box is moved to the left to initially compress the spring and is released as shown in the animation (position is in meters and time is in seconds).

Question

Which area properly represents the work done by the spring during the animation (assume v=0 at the beginning and end of the animation)? Start

Adapted by Vern Lindberg from physlet problem authored by Mario Belloni and Wolfgang Christian.
See Giancoli-PA: 6-3, Giancoli-SE: 7-4.© 2000 by Prentice-Hall, Inc. A Pearson Company