Is there a difference between releasing mass from spring gently and abruptly? Can someone please explain the difference in the two following situations:


*

*Releasing a body attached to a spring gently

*Releasing a body attached to a spring abruptly


Assuming that the mass of the body remains same in both the situations, is the extension of the spring the same too? If not then why, and how does it differ?
 A: If you release it "abruptly", i.e. not carefully, you might introduce a small perturbation or disymmetry yielding a torque or lateral oscillations. More or less like when you want to release an object on challanging equilibrium.
A: This is a difficult question to answer, since you are not constraining the problem to any particular type of spring (compression, extension, torsion, etc.),how many degrees of freedom you are considering, and what and how the 'release' mechanism acts on the spring - for example the release might not only induce axial motion but also lateral or rotational motions.
But largely speaking, and considering a one-dimensional (hypothetical) spring - no. The spring will essentially come to the same rest position in either case. The only difference being the power - the rate at which the energy is released over time.
But by closer considerations - perhaps yes! By slowly releasing the spring you create temperature changes in the material that are slowly dissipated as heat to the environment - as opposed to heat 'trapped' in the material when it is quickly released. And that slightly affects properties like elasticity. Such 'higher order' effects appear as hysteresis in the material - and these could result in minor differences in the final position for each case you consider.
