Hooke's Law
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Hooke's Law states that the force exerted by a stretched or compressed spring is a restoring force and is linearly proportional to the distance that the spring is stretched or compressed beyond its relaxed length. The formula for Hooke's law is 
where k is the spring stiffness constant which has units of newtons per meter and 
is the displacement from the equilibrium position.
The negative sign here is to indicate that the force is in the direction opposite the displacement. For example, if is to the right, then 
is to the left, indicating that the mass is pulled back towards the spring.
