Problem dealing with hook-law

1. Nov 8, 2008

dban33

1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known data
One end of a massless spring with hook-law constant K=119 N/M is epoxied to the bottom of a beaker. The other end of the spring is epoxied to a wooden block of mass m=4.17 kg and density 695 kg/m^3. THe beaker if filled with water until the block is fully immersed. Calculate the elongation of the spring. delta L= ??

2. Relevant equations
The equation I was trying to use was Fx=-kx
I do not think this is correct because my answer was wrong.

3. The attempt at a solution
I put the data into the equation -k as -119 and x as 4.17 times 695 but in the end I still did not get delta L and that is what I need. I do not know where to begin with this problem.

2. Nov 9, 2008

tiny-tim

Hi dban33!

You've calculated the force by multiplying by the density

but the lighter the block is, the stronger the force will be …

so you should multiply by … ?

3. Nov 9, 2008

dban33

Ok...so the lighter the block is...the stronger the force will be. Does that mean that for the equation F=-kx......im trying to solve for x right? because x is the elongation of the spring. This would mean that I would have to know the force of the block. Is the force of an object its mass times gravitational force?? F=mg?

4. Nov 9, 2008
{"extraction_info": {"found_math": false, "script_math_tex": 0, "script_math_asciimath": 0, "math_annotations": 0, "math_alttext": 0, "mathml": 0, "mathjax_tag": 0, "mathjax_inline_tex": 0, "mathjax_display_tex": 0, "mathjax_asciimath": 0, "img_math": 0, "codecogs_latex": 0, "wp_latex": 0, "mimetex.cgi": 0, "/images/math/codecogs": 0, "mathtex.cgi": 0, "katex": 0, "math-container": 0, "wp-katex-eq": 0, "align": 0, "equation": 0, "x-ck12": 0, "texerror": 0, "math_score": 0.9481327533721924, "perplexity": 575.5070235100475}, "config": {"markdown_headings": false, "markdown_code": true, "boilerplate_config": {"ratio_threshold": 0.18, "absolute_threshold": 10, "end_threshold": 15, "enable": true}, "remove_buttons": true, "remove_image_figures": true, "remove_link_clusters": true, "table_config": {"min_rows": 2, "min_cols": 3, "format": "plain"}, "remove_chinese": true, "remove_edit_buttons": true, "extract_latex": true}, "warc_path": "s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-09/segments/1487501170884.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20170219104610-00263-ip-10-171-10-108.ec2.internal.warc.gz"}