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Kalibasa
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Homework Statement
I'm looking at how to calculate the tension in the ropes in an Atwood machine (two masses hanging on either side of a pulley, with mass 2 on the right side). We were told, for connected objects, that it was easiest to treat the two objects as a system and use a curved coordinate axis; then we were supposed to use this overall acceleration to find individual internal forces in a second step.
Homework Equations
The first step is ay= (m2-m1)g/(m1+m2)
But then in the second step he's suddenly giving us either of these equations to use:
Fnet2y= T-m2g= m2 (-ay)
Fnet1y= T-m1g=m1 (+ay)
The Attempt at a Solution
ay is negative for T2 and positive for T1. Does this mean that we're no longer using the curved axis in the second step?