next up previous
Next: Solve the equations Up: Mass held by two Previous: Draw free body diagrams

F=ma in component form

This time its pretty clear that a simple horizontal-vertical coordinate system is the best one to use.

The two vectors that we'll have to decompose are tex2html_wrap_inline701 and tex2html_wrap_inline703 . So

  equation153

and

  equation158

Again because the accelerations are zero, the net force on all objects is zero. This tells you that tex2html_wrap_inline705 as expected.

The next thing to do is worry about the junction. The vector equation for that is

equation163



Joshua Deutsch
Wed Jan 7 17:12:17 PST 1998