Question

You have a 5 kg planter full of geraniums on your front porch, hanging from a wire made of lead (diameter 2.2 mm). You want to set up a second identical planter and have it hang at precisely the same level, but the only wire available is made of nickel. If the original length of each wire is the same before being stretched by the planters, what diameter nickel wire must you buy to have your planters hang evenly? Young’s Modulus for lead is 1.6 x 10¹⁰ Pa and for nickel it’s 21 x 10¹⁰ Pa.

Enter the diameter in mm below.

Answer 1