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On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Justin Parke wrote:^^
...
Use conservation of energy to find the speed of the mass as it
passes through the midpoint (i.e. 12.5 cm from the origin)"
I get the same answer that you do (2.6 m/s), but I think that
the use of the word "midpoint" is highly misleading. The
midpoint of the oscillation (assuming that it somehow remains
purely vertical, which would be very unlikely) is 20 cm from
the origin--i.e., the equilibrium position. At *that* position
the speed of the mass will be 2.8 m/s. The real problem,
however, is that for the oscillation to continue, the spring
and mass will need to be constrained against "sproinging out"
as the mass continues upward and compresses the spring by 15 cm.