Yes, in the case that block A has a faster velocity downward, it does. When I doubted that initial assessment of the system, thinking that each block has equal velocity, that's when I got confused.
I see... I must have really botched that square root then by doing two under one. Strange, I guess I had some misconception that that actually worked. Nice catch, that actually gave me the right answer. Thanks alphysicist.
By the way, physixguru, I'm not sure what you were talking about above...
Why is the latter part of that v^2/4? How did you eliminate the fraction beneath the exponent? What I did was simplify the 1/2 to be from this:
3.26699 = (v^2)/2 + ((v/2)^2)/2
To this:
3.26699 = 1/2((v^2) + ((v/2)^2))
And then multiplied both sides by two, getting me this:
6.53398 = v^2 +...
Okay, I see what you're saying alphysicist. Looks like I gave it the wrong sign in step 4 in my addition from step 3. But that should be okay, since I changed it anyway... I'm not sure that's the problem then.
Right, I did change that to positive in order to get the square root. It shouldn't matter what sign it is since I'm trying to find the speed, right? And at that point, I'm no longer adding/subtracting, but multiplying.
What I did to get to step five was multiply 2.36699 by 2, then find the...
Well, when looking at the problem, it appeared that way initially. I looked up other responses to it, and that's what someone here had to say about it too:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95263
(read Doc Al's post)
Now that I look at it again, I guess they actually ARE rising...
This problem is bugging the crap out of me. It's the last one I need to do. I swear I got the right answer. Maybe you experts can help? :)
Homework Statement
The system shown in the figure below consists of a light, inextensible cord; light frictionless pulleys, and blocks of equal mass...