Question

A biologist studying chimpanzees realizes that in some cases she can estimate the mass of the animal by the stretch in a vine when they hang on it. She measures that one of the young sub adults stretches a vine by .32 m and later measures the spring constant of the vine to be 650 N/m. What is the mass of the sun adult chimp?

Answer 1

First, we can use the spring force equation to find the weight force of the chimp:

$\begin{gathered} F=k\cdot x\\ \\ F=650\cdot0.32\\ \\ F=208\text{ N} \end{gathered}$

Then, to find the mass, we can divide the weight force by gravity's acceleration:

$\begin{gathered} F=m\cdot g\\ \\ m=\frac{F}{g}\\ \\ m=\frac{208}{9.8}\\ \\ m=21.22\text{ kg} \end{gathered}$

Therefore the chimp's mass is 21.22 kg.