Recent content by Flamefury

I just need confirmation that I'm thinking of this in the right way. It's looks so simple that I feel I'm overthinking things and messing up. You are holding onto a spring that is already stretched. You then proceed to take that spring to equilibrium slowly. (a) The work you do is...

I still don't understand the integral, but I was able to get the answer. I wrote the work equation using the change in hypotenuse as the displacement. This works because of the pulley at the top, and the fact that the string can't be created or destroyed...

dW = F(\frac{x}{\sqrt{x^{2}+h^{2}}})dx

I understand up to subbing in the cosθ into the dW equation. However, I don't understand the process of integration.

This may be a silly question, but how do I integrate x = 3 to x = 1?

Homework Statement http://edugen.wiley.com/edugen/courses/crs1650/art/qb/qu/c07/pict_7_42.gif Figure 7-42 shows a cord attached to a cart that can slide along a frictionless horizontal rail aligned along an x axis. The left end of the cord is pulled over a pulley, of negligible mass and...