A spring has an unstretched length of 0.650 m is attached to a fixed point. A mass of 0.400 kg is attached to the spring and gently lowered until equilibrium is reached and the spring is stretched elastically by a distance of 0.200 m. The load on the spring is set into simple harmonic motion of amplitude 0.200 m.
This is a simulation of the vertically oscillating spring-mass system. The energies against displacement (taking upward displacement from the equilibrium position as positive) is plotted beside the simulation.
The gravitational potential energy is calculated with respect to the reference level (blue horizontal line). This reference level can be adjusted by (1) dragging the blue box at the right end of the reference level or (2) entering the value of the position in the text box at the lower right hand corner.