Recent content by Mikey-D

damn. Was afraid that might happen. Allow me to explain my situation, and maybe someone has a suggestion then... I've two lines (l1 and l2), and a point in between them (p). I'm looking for the shortest line segment, through p, which connects l1 and l2. This shouldn't be difficult...I must...

unfortunately, no. The ranges of both angles (theta and phi) can be large. It gets pretty ugly pretty fast. What I'm looking for is a minimum of the function f = \frac{d_1}{Cos(\theta)} + \frac{d_2}{Cos(\theta+\phi)}

The latter, sorry. I misspoke (mistyped?). :P \theta = ??

First off, this isn't a homework question. I need a solution to the following in terms of \theta. I don't have access to any math software, it's been a number of years since I've done any serious trig, and when I try to solve it on paper it turns into a cluster**** of confusion. If anyone can...

I found a workaround, so no longer need to make these calculations, but I'm still curious. I'm not sure I follow...What six equations are there, and even with six equations how can we solve for more than six points. I should also note that all forces are in the vertical direction. So our...

this post also appears in the mechanics physics section, but thought I may get some results here... I asked a similar question a while back, but am still unclear on something. If I have some arbitrary object (a box, for instance) with known centre of mass that is held up at four (or more)...

I asked a similar question a while back, but am still unclear on something. If I have some arbitrary object (a box, for instance) with known centre of mass that is held up at four (or more) planar points, is it possible to calculate exactly what portion of the mass of the box is at each of the...

Sorry, Tim, but I'm missing something here... What are my two other equations then (other than sum of force = 0)?

Sorry, but I appear to be a bit dense today... What are the three equations? 1. Sum of vertical forces = 0 2. Sum of torques about an arbitrary axis through the CoM = 0 3. ? (I feel like I'm missing something really obvious here...) edit: seems my math was off. I can just pick a new...

Interesting...that makes sense. So any more than three people in two dimensions is (arguably) redundant. As long as the triangle formed by those three lifters constrain the CoM, any other lifters are just helping to lighten the load for anyone else on that side of the CoM. Make sense? ok...

Hey all, New to the forum (obviously, since this is my first post). I've been scouring the internet trying to find some guidance on a problem I've been having, but have had no luck. Let me just say first off that my physics and math backgrounds are fairly elementary. I have minors in both...