Recent content by Kinta

You're right, @Chestermiller. I let my analogy get a little too far ahead of me and lost sight of the context. The example I gave with potential energy and the interpretation of it you've given are still acceptable ways to think about what is meant by an "equation of state". The takeaway...

To say that the potential energy U of a system is a "function of state" is to say that the value of U doesn't depend on the way in which the system's current state was arrived. In other words, you can relate it to potential energy changes in conservative fields. If you've already taken any...

My pleasure! :)

I think the sign of the tension force that you obtain for the cord between two blocks will depend on which equation you use to solve for it. Regardless, the tension everywhere in the cord between two blocks is equal in magnitude (meaning disregarding the sign). This is incorrect. In writing...

You're making it too complicated and, in doing so, missing something. Try just using the equation you got when you applied Newton's 2nd Law to block C. Now that you have a, you should only have one unknown (and a particularly desirable one at that) in that equation.

Because this statement directly contradicts one of your previous, correct equations regarding the net force on block C:

I mean, relative to the rest of the problem, getting the two desired quantities requires less work. :)

Looks good to me. Now you can get the desired tension for part (a) and the displacement of block A for part (b) relatively easily.

So long as you know the three ##m##'s, it looks to me like you have an equation with only one unknown in it.

Sum all three equations. And what do you have on the left side of that equation?

Show me the very first line you have when you try to add the three equations.

You shouldn't be looking for any net forces. You already have the three net forces acting on each of the respective masses, (not explicitly because you don't know the tensions yet, but you should see that you don't need the tension forces to find a).

Why? What's leading you to that conclusion?

If you sum all of the equations, you won't be obtaining a "net force". A net force is an overall force acting on a single object, not a collection of separate objects. The right-hand sides of each of your equations are the net or total forces acting on the corresponding mass. Can you show me...

From this point, what exactly did you do to try obtaining a?