Find force from a function of displacement?

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SUMMARY

The discussion focuses on calculating the net force on an object moving along the x-axis, where its position is defined by the function x(t) = At - Bt^3. To find the net force, F, one must apply Newton's second law, F = ma, where 'm' is the mass of the object. The acceleration 'a' is determined by differentiating the position function twice with respect to time, yielding the necessary components to compute the force as a function of time.

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  • Basic calculus, specifically differentiation
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beanryu
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An object with mass m moves along the x-axis. Its position as a function of time is given by x(t)=At-Bt^3, where A and B are constants. Calculate the net force on the object as a function of time.

I have no idea as to how to begin.
Thanks for anyone's help.
:confused: I don't know !&@#%^@%!$^$(! about doing this kind of calculus problem.
 
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beanryu said:
An object with mass m moves along the x-axis. Its position as a function of time is given by x(t)=At-Bt^3, where A and B are constants. Calculate the net force on the object as a function of time.
.

You want the force, so that tells you that you need to find F=ma. You know the mass, m. So you need to find a, the acceleration function for this motion.

Velocity is the rate of change of position, and acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. There are plenty of examples of this in physics, some of which are sure to be in your physics text, so you might take a look there and see how they did this.

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