Oscillations of a suspended slinky

Abstract

Abstract This paper discusses the oscillations of a spring (slinky) under its own weight. A discrete model, describing the slinky by N springs and N masses, is introduced and compared to a continuous treatment. One interesting result is that the upper part of the slinky performs a triangular oscillation whereas the bottom part performs an almost harmonic oscillation if the slinky starts with ‘natural’ initial conditions, where the spring is just pushed further up from its rest position under gravity and then released. It is also shown that the period of the oscillation is simply given by T = 32 L / g , where L is the length of the slinky under its own weight and g the acceleration of gravity, independent of the other properties of the spring.