Day 21: Interatomic Spring Constant

A key feature of the Matter and Interactions curriculum is the ball-and-spring model of a solid and the implications of the model (e.g., speed of sound in a metal). Today, students investigated how the spring constant changes when identical springs are in series and in parallel. We can use these rules, together with data from stretching a long copper wire, to dermine the “interatomic spring constant” of the bonds between copper atoms.