🪝 Hooke's Law & Elasticity
📖 The Physics
Hooke's law is the simplest rule of elasticity: for a spring, the stretch is directly proportional to the pulling force. Double the load and you double the stretch, triple it and you triple the stretch.
But this only holds up to the elastic limit. Pull harder than that and the spring is permanently deformed — it no longer springs fully back, and the graph bends over (red).
F = k·x ⟹ x = F / k
Elastic energy stored = ½·k·x²
Young's modulus Y = stress / strain = (F/A) / (x/L)
A stiffer spring (bigger k) stretches less for the same load. Push the load past the elastic limit and the material no longer springs back.
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