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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 and . So

 

and

 

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

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



Josh Deutsch
Sun Jan 21 23:46:46 PST 1996