Recent content by jprg

It still doesn't make sense to me, as the calculations do not take the actual dimensional layout into consideration. But the forces and angles will change as the points of attachment or the distance between the walls change.

a and b just serve to denote force components. Their units are the same as the weight. Since the weight is 1 unit acting straight down, and the vertical (downward) component on the blue rope's first section is denoted as b, then the green rope must counteract these too forces and have an upward...

Thanks, Can you clarify how you got tanx = 1/(b/a+1)

I can write a computer program and use numerical approximation for this. But I would really like to solve this analytically so as to understand the mechanics of it. By the way, the pulley diameter can be disregarded. Do I need to get into calculus to solve this?

Hi, I would like to solve this problem. Pulley is attached to the green rope that is 2' long. The weight is 1 unit. a and b are unknown. The green rope's point of attachment is 20' higher than that of the blue rope. The distance between two walls is 20'. I would like to solve this for...