Physicists develop highly desirable skills through their extensive experience of problem solving − logic, determination, resilience and mathematical ability to name just a few. You will become an ace problem solver by answering lots of questions − these 5 key steps will help you develop a logical, structured method and universal approach.
5 key steps to problem solving
• Step 1: Keywords
• Step 2: Diagram
• Step 3: Concepts
• Step 4: Symbols
• Step 5: Dimensions & Numbers
When faced with a new question, we employ a strategy to break the problem down into a series of 5 steps to digest and analyse it. Each step helps us to un-derstand the information given in the question and establish what it is that we are being asked to calculate or discover. Using these steps for each new question we attempt can, with practice, make solving physics problems extremely satisfy-ing and rewarding.
Problem of the week:
Q: A pop-up toy consists of a head and sucker of combined mass m = 1.5 kg stuck to the top of a light spring of natural length l0 = 0.30 m and spring constant k = 250 N m-1. The centre of mass of the system can be taken to be at the top of the spring. The spring is compressed to length l = 0.10 m when the pop-up toy is stuck to the ground.
What height above the ground does the bottom of the unstretched spring jump to when it is smoothly released?
Enter Isaac Physics to answer here