Woohoo! I got it...finally!
I can't believe it took me literally all day to get this...
I guess I just needed to take a few hours to do something else and then come back to it with a fresh outlook. Thanks for all your help, both of you.
Ok. So we have three external forces and they are:
N_left (normal force from the ground on the left foot of the ladder)
N_right (normal force from the ground on the right foot of the ladder)
mg (force of gravity on the man)
So right off the bat, we know that N_left + N_right =...
Homework Statement
Here's a screen shot of the problem statement:
http://i.imgur.com/IRI02Ne.png
For the purpose of this post, I'll label the given information as:
a = left side of ladder (2.5m)
a' = distance from floor to the point where the man is standing (2.0m)
b = right side of ladder...