How Much Work Is Needed to Compress a Spring?

[Chica1975]

Homework Statement

A spring, with a spring constant of 87 N/m, was compressed a distance of 8.6cm (0.086m). How much work was done in order to compress the spring?

Homework Equations

WC=1/2kd^2

The Attempt at a Solution

I tried to plug in the numbers as follows in the above equation - but I can't get the answer out. I have been doing this for ages am like a broken record - pse snap me out of this programming!

WC= 2*87*.086^2 = 1.286904J
Apparently, the correct answer is .32J

Help!

 

[granpa]

you are off by a factor of 4
you multiplied by 2
maybe you were supposed to multiply by 1/2

 

[Chica1975]

thanks - I tried to recalculate it this is not the case.

 

[Redbelly98]

Homework Equations

WC=1/2kd^2

According to this equation, you are supposed to multiply kd² by 1/2, not by 2.