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Homework Statement
There is a balloon of mass Mb. A rope ladder of negligible mass is hung from it. A man of mass m stands on the rope ladder. A buoyant force F acts on the balloon, causing the man-balloon-ladder system to accelerate upwards. Now, the man climbs up the rope ladder towards the balloon with an acceleration of am relative to the rope ladder. Find the acceleration relative to the ground of
- the center of mass of the man-balloon-ladder system;
- the balloon.
Homework Equations
I think it's just intelligent application of Newton's Second Law of motion and concepts of the center of mass.
The Attempt at a Solution
My book provided the answers, but did not state clearly which expression belongs to which acceleration.
There is a [tex]\frac{F - m a_{m}}{M_{b} + m} - g[/tex]
and a [tex]\frac{F}{M_{b} + m} - g[/tex] .
I think the second expression is for the acceleration of the center of mass. If I consider the whole system, I get
[tex]F - (M_{b} + m) g = (M_{b} + m) a_{c}[/tex], where [tex]a_{c}[/tex] is the acceleration of the center of mass.
I'm not sure how to obtain the second acceleration expression.