Suppose a spring with spring constant is horizontal and has one end attached to a wall and the other end attached to a mass. Suppose that the friction of the mass with the floor (i.e., the damping constant) is .
  1. Set up a differential equation that describes this system. Let to denote the displacement, in meters, of the mass from its equilibrium position, and give your answer in terms of . Assume that positive displacement means the mass is farther from the wall than when the system is at equilibrium.
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  2. Find the general solution to your differential equation from the previous part. Use and to denote arbitrary constants. Use for independent variable to represent the time elapsed in seconds. Enter as c1 and as c2.
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  3. Is this system under damped, over damped, or critically damped? Enter a value for the damping constant that would make the system critically damped.
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You can earn partial credit on this problem.